A  / 


^ 


MADAME   DE   STAEL   AND    HER 
LOVERS 


M\D  HfcR  LUVtKl» 


MADAME  DE  STAEL 
From  a  Painting:  by  Francois  Gerard 

PAtto  hy  Brtmn  CUmcmt  et  Cite 


jHats  Sot  aMA0AM 


MADAME  DE  STAEL 
AND  HER  LOVERS 


BY 


FRANCIS   GRIBBLE 

AUTHOR  or 
'THE  EARLY  MOUNTAINEERS,"   "LAKE  GENEVA  AND  ITS  LITERARY 

LANDMARKS,"  ETC 


LONDON 

EVELEIGH     NASH 

1907 


/ 


PREFACE 

The  Life  of  Madame  de  Stael  has  been  written 
a  good  many  times.  The  earher  biographies — 
up  to  and  including  the  ambitious  work  by 
Dr.  Stevens — are  inadequate,  owing  to  the 
scantiness  of  the  material  then  available. 
They  give  a  somewhat  uncritical  relation  of 
Madame  de  Stael's  public  life,  but  leave  her 
personal  life  wrapped  in  mystery,  without  even 
suggesting  that  there  are  secrets  unrevealed. 
Lady  Blennerhassett's  book,  written  in  German, 
and  translated  into  both  French  and  English,  is 
much  better  from  every  point  of  view.  At  the 
time  of  its  appearance  Benjamin  Constant's 
Journal  Intime  had  just  been  published  in 
the  Revue  Internationale.  That  extraordinary 
document  threw  quite  a  fresh  light  upon  Madame 
de  Stael's  character.  It  showed  her  as  the  exigent 
mistress,  clinging  to  a  reluctant  lover,  and  refusing 
to  let  him  go.  Lady  Blennerhassett  quoted  a 
good  deal  from  it.  Hers  is  consequently  the 
first  Life  in  which  Madame  de  Stael  appears  as 
a  woman  with  a  passionate  heart  and  not  as  a 
philosopher  in  petticoats. 

The    story    thus    brought    to    light    was    not 


Preface 

absolutely  a  new  one.  There  had  been  some 
gossip  about  it  in  articles  printed  in  the  Revue 
des  deux  Mondes  at  the  time  of  Benjamin 
Constant's  death.  Sainte-Beuve  had  heard 
something  of  it  from  Madame  R^camier,  and 
had  repeated  what  he  had  heard  in  certain  of 
his  Causeries  du  Lundi.  There  had  been 
references  to  it  in  one  or  two  of  Sismondi's 
letters  to  the  Comtesse  d'Albany.  Details, 
however,  were  lacking.  The  story  rested  in  the 
main  upon  oral  tradition,  and  had  almost  been 
forgotten  when  the  publication  of  the  Journal 
Intime  revived  it.  But  the  Journal  Intime, 
which  is  probably  the  most  pitiless  piece  of  self- 
analysis  ever  put  on  paper,  has  never  been 
translated.  In  so  far  as  it  is  known  at  all  to 
English  readers,  it  is  known  only  through  the 
extracts  cited  by  Lady  Blennerhassett ;  and  it 
merits  far  more  minute  attention  than  is  given 
to  it  in  her  pages. 

Moreover,  the  Journal  Intime  was  not  the 
only  document  needed  for  the  thorough  under- 
standing of  the  story.  It  is  further  illuminated 
by  a  considerable  mass  of  correspondence  to  which 
Lady  Blennerhassett  had  not  access.  Some 
passages  in  the  Memoirs  of  Barras  show  us 
how  the  relations  of  the  lovers  struck  a  cynical 
observer  of  the  period.  The  letters  of  Benjamin 
Constant's  cousin  Rosalie  to  her  brother  Charles, 
preserved  in  the  Geneva  Public  Library,  are  full 
of  picturesque,  and  sometimes  poignant,  particulars. 

vi 


Preface 

Benjamin  Constant's  own  letters  to  his  cousins  and 
to  his  aunt,  Madame  de  Nassau,  help  us  to  bridge 
many  gaps  in  the  narrative.  It  is  from  these  that 
we  infer  that  Benjamin  Constant  indubitably 
believed  —  what  Barras  states  as  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge  —  that  Madame  de  Stael's 
youngest  child,  Albertine,  afterwards  Duchesse 
de  Broglie,  was  not  M.  de  Stael's  daughter,  but 
his.^ 

Madame  de  Stael's  own  letters  to  her  lover  are 
unfortunately,  with  few  exceptions,  missing  from 
the  collection ;  and  the  Constant  letters  tell  us 
why.  They  were  kept  in  a  box,  originally  stored 
by  Madame  Constant  at  Hanover,  but  afterwards 
consigned  to  the  care  of  other  members  of  the 
Constant  family  at  Lausanne.  Immediately  after 
Benjamin  Constant's  death,  the  Duchesse  de 
Broglie  wrote  to  Charles  de  Constant,  asking  that 
the  box  and  its  contents  might  be  surrendered  to 
her,  as  Benjamin  Constant  had  promised  that  they 
should  be.  Charles  de  Constant  complied  with 
her  request  The  letters  were  surrendered,  and 
are  believed  to  have  been  destroyed.  If  they 
exist,  they  are  in  safe  custody  in  the  Tower  of  the 

*  "  Benjamin  Constant  seemed  to  me  to  do  justice  to  the  truth  of 
the  reciprocal  positions  Madame  de  Stael  had  somewhat  distorted 
for  his  sake,  in  order  to  still  further  excite  his  imagination,  which 
was  p>erhaps  rather  inclined  to  excitement  at  that  very  time,  when 
the  public  saw  proofs  which  were  hardly  equivocal  of  an  affection 
strongly  shared,  in  the  birth  of  a  daughter  whom  Madame  de  Stael 
called  Albertine,  and  the  resemblance  of  whose  features,  hair, 
everything  in  fact,  appeared  to  the  world  as  the  striking  image  of 
Jienjamin  Constant"  (Memoirs  of  Barras^  vol.  iii.  p.  162). 

vii  ^ 


Preface 

Archives  at  Coppet.  The  Comte  d'Haussonville, 
who  at  present  owns  and  occupies  that  mansion, 
does  not  consider  that  the  story  which  they  tell 
concerns  the  public ;  and  when  he  writes  of 
Madame  de  Stael,  as  he  often  does,  he  ignores 
Benjamin  Constant  altogether. 

The  box,  however,  did  not  contain  all  the  letters 
that  passed  between  the  lovers.  A  few  of  them 
— a  very  few — were  printed  by  Strodtmann  in 
Germany,  and  reprinted  by  Lady  Blennerhassett. 
A  larger  collection  which  had  remained  in  the 
hands  of  the  descendants  of  Madame  Benjamin 
Constant  were  published,  a  few  months  ago,  by 
that  lady's  great-granddaughter,  in  the  American 
Critic.  The  Critics  description  of  them  as  " love 
letters"  is  not  entirely  accurate.  Only  a  few  of 
them,  at  any  rate,  are  rightly  so  described.  Their 
date  is  subsequent  to  what  is  generally  regarded 
as  the  final  breach  between  the  lovers — subsequent 
to  the  locking  of  the  box  of  which  Benjamin 
Constant's  cousins  took  charge.  Their  interest 
is  only  retrospective ;  they  only  rake  dead  ashes. 
But  they  nevertheless  add  a  good  deal  to  our 
knowledge  not  merely  of  the  facts  but  also  of  the 
psychology  of  the  intimacy  under  review,  and  form 
one  fresh  piece  of  evidence  among  many  that  this 
intimacy  was  the  one  event  of  really  permanent 
importance  in  Madame  de  Stael's  life. 

During  her  lifetime  she  had  several  distinct 
reputations.  Her  fame,  and  the  story  of  her 
persecutions,  echoed  from  end  to  end  of  Europe. 

viii 


Preface 

Most  justly  might  she  have  asked :  "  Quae  regio 
in  terris  nostri  non  plena  laboris?"  Her  con- 
temporaries reckoned  her  a  great  politician,  a 
great  philosopher,  and  a  great  novelist  They 
called  her  after  the  heroine  of  her  chief  romance, 
and  they  spoke  of  her  "  duel "  with  Napoleon. 
Posterity  sees  these  aspects  of  her  renown  in  a 
more  true  proportion.  In  politics  her  successes 
and  her  failures  alike  were  only  those  of  the  wire- 
puller. As  a  political  philosopher  she  figures  only 
as  the  apologist  of  her  father's  mediocrity.  As  a 
metaphysician  she  is  only  the  echo  of  an  echo, 
reproducing  Schlegel's  reproduction  of  the  thoughts 
of  Kant.  As  a  novelist  she  only  followed  the 
fleeting  fashion  of  the  hour,  and  her  Corinne 
hardly  counts  for  more  in  the  history  of  literature 
than  Madame  de  Krudner's  VaUrie. 

Those  were  her  limitations.  Professor  Saints- 
bury  has  pointed  them  out  in  the  Encyclopesdia 
Britannica\  though  he  adds  that  to  recite  them 
and  then  stop  "  would  be  in  the  highest  degree 
unfair."  If  Madame  de  Stael  was  not  a  great 
thinker  or  a  great  artist,  she  was  at  any  rate 
a  •*  live "  woman  of  immense  ability  and  great 
force  of  character,  whose  personality  had  to  be 
reckoned  with  in  most  of  the  departments  of 
endeavour.  Even  Talleyrand  was,  at  one  time, 
glad  to  lean  upon  her  influence ;  even  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  was  deceived  by  the  glitter  of  her 
writings ;  even  Byron  was  jealous  of  the  figure 
she  cut  in  Society  ;  even  the  Duke  of  Wellington 

ix 


Preface 

knelt  to  kiss  her  hand  ;  even  the  Russian  Emperor 
sought  her  advice. 

Outwardly,  therefore,  in  spite  of  her  limitations, 
and  in  spite  of  Napoleon's  hostility,  her  life  was 
crowned  with  success.  She  did  not  despise  her 
success ;  homage  and  applause  were  the  things 
for  which  she  appeared  to  live.  But  the  tribute 
of  flattery  and  the  consciousness  of  power  did  not 
satisfy  her.  These  things  were  vain  unless  she 
could  also  love  and  be  loved.  That  is  the  secret 
of  her  inner  life.  She  tried  to  be — in  a  sense  and 
to  an  extent  she  was — grande  amoureuse. 

Perhaps  she  loved  love  better  than  she  loved 
her  lovers  ;  certainly  she  did  not  always  love  either 
wisely  or  well.  In  her  youth  she  made  a  foolish 
marriage  with  her  eyes  shut ;  in  middle  life  she 
made  a  ridiculous  marriage  with  her  eyes  open. 
Neither  the  foolish  marriage  nor  the  ridiculous 
marriage  was  allowed  to  be  an  obstacle  to  any 
more  passionate  or  more  sentimental  appeal  to 
her  emotions.  Her  treatment  of  Rocca,  the 
infatuated  boy,  was  not  a  great  deal  better  than 
her  treatment  of  M.  de  Stael,  the  cynical 
man  of  the  world,  who  bought  her  dowry  with  his 
title.  Even  her  lovers  had  some  reason  to  com- 
plain of  the  levity  of  her  affections.  Benjamin 
Constant's  relatives  complained  very  loudly  on 
his  behalf. 

None  the  less,  she  never  lost  sight  of  the  ideal. 
She  craved  for  happiness,  and  believed  that 
happiness  was  only  to   be   found    in    love ;    she 

X 


Preface 

always  did  her  best  to  persuade  herself  that  her 
first  love  was  her  last  and  that  her  last  love  was 
her  first.  But  she  was  weak,  and  circumstances 
were  strong,  and,  in  her  infidelities,  she  was  only 
following  the  example  which  men  set  her.  M.  de 
Stael  forsook  her  society  for  that  of  actresses ; 
M.  de  Narbonne  tired  of  her.  Again  and  again  she 
was  driven  to  make  a  fresh  start  in  her  sentimental 
life.  That  is  why  her  case  is  so  profoundly  in- 
teresting. Her  conduct,  viewed  without  reference 
to  its  motives,  was  that  of  a  loose  woman  ;  but  the 
motives  transfigure  it.  Madame  de  Sta€l  meant 
well,  and  felt  good.  Her  aim  was  not  merely  to 
achieve  happiness,  but  also  to  impart  it ;  her  real 
life  was  in  that  struggle,  and  not  in  any  political 
adventure  or  any  literary  undertaking.  Every 
new  document  that  comes  to  light  confirms  that 
estimate  of  her  character,  and  suggests  that  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  re-write  her  Life  from  a  fresh 
point  of  view. 


XI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

Mademoiselle  Suzanne  Curchod  —  Her  flirtations  with  the 
ministers  of  religion — Her  engagement  to  Gibbon — Did 
Gibbon  treat  her  badly? — His  proposal  that  the  corre- 
spondence should  cease — Mademoiselle  Curchod's  flirta- 
tion with  the  Yverdon  lawyer — She  throws  him  over  to 
marry  Necker  ...... 


CHAPTER  II 

Necker's  genealogical  tree — How  he  got  it  and  what  he  paid 
for  it — The  Neckers  at  Geneva — The  scandalous  frivolity 
of  Louis  Necker  —  Jacques  Necker  in  Vemet's  and 
Thelusson's  banks — His  rise  in  life — His  courtship  of 
Suzanne  Curchod — "  Each  became  the  other's  thurifer  "  .       13 


CHAPTER  III 

The  grandeur  of  the  Neckers — Madame  Necker  and  her 
poor  relations — Birth  of  a  daughter — Her  education  in  a 
salon — And  in  a  garden — Necker  in  office— And  out  of 
office — A  course  of  foreign  travel — The  purchase  of 
Copp)et — The  place  of  exile  .... 


CHAPTER  IV 

Mademoiselle  Necker's  early  writings — Her  secrets  revealed 
in  her  short  stories — Her  love  for  General  Guibcrt — The 
match-makers  at  work — Marriage  to  the  Baron  de  Stael- 
Holstein       .  .  .  .  .  .  -34 

xiii 


Contents 


CHAPTER  V 

PAGE 

Necker  recalled  to  office — Dismissed — Recalled  again  after 
the  fall  of  the  Bastille  —  Fails — Resigns  —  Retires  to 
Coppet  —  Madame  de  Stael's  essay  on  the  works  of 
Rousseau  —  Inferences  that  can  be  drawn  from  it  — 
Madame  de  Stael's  salon — Description  of  it  by  Gouver- 
neur  Morris — Progress  of  the  Revolution — Madame  de 
Stael  saves  her  friends  and  then  leaves  Paris       .  .       46 


CHAPTER  VI 

From  Coppet  to  Mickleham — The  motive  for  the  journey — 
The  Emigres  at  Juniper  Hall — Madame  de  Stael's  friend- 
ship with  Fanny  Burney — M.  de  Narbonne  "behaves 
badly"  .......      60 


CHAPTER  VII 

Madame  de  Stael  returns  to  Switzerland — Her  exertions  on 
behalf  of  the  emigris — Correspondence  on  this  subject 
with  Henri  Meister  —  Death  of  Madame  Necker — 
Benjamin  Constant  introduces  himself      .  .  .71 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Benjamin  Constant  de  Rebecque — His  ancestors — His  pre- 
cocious childhood  —  His  dissolute  youth  —  He  meets 
Madame  de  Charrifere  at  Paris  and  visits  her  at 
Colombier — Writes  the  History  of  Religion  on  the  backs 
of  playing-cards — Departure  for  Brunswick — Affectionate 
correspondence  —  Colombier  revisited — The  end  of  the 
liaison  .  .  .  .  .  .  -83 


CHAPTER  IX 

Benjamin  Constant's  intimacy  with  Madame  de  Stael — What 

Rosalie  de  Constant  thought — The  Paris  salon  re-opened 

— Services  rendered  to  Talleyrand — And  to  Benjamin 

Constant — Revolt  and  reconquest — The  birth  of  Albertine 

xiv 


Contents 


CHAPTER  X 

rACB 

M.  and  Madame  de  Stagl  separate— The  alleged  "  duel "  with 
Napoleon — Publication  of  De  la  Literature — Death  of 
M.  de  Stael — Why  Madame  de  Stael  did  not  then  marry 
Benjamin     .......     109 

CHAPTER  XI 

Publication  of  Deiphine — A  roman-d-c/e/— If  ccker  writes  a 
novel — Social  life  at  Coppet — And  at  Geneva— Corre- 
spondence with  Camille  Jordan — He  refuses  to  travel  with 
Madame  de  Stael  in  Italy — She  goes  to  Germany  with 
Benjamin  Constant  instead  .  .  .  .123 

CHAPTER  XII 

Travel  in  Germany — The  German  view  of  Madame  de  Stael 
— Life  at  Weimar — And  at  Berlin — Benjamin  Constant's 
studies  and  amusements  —  Extracts  from  his  Diary  — 
Death  of  Necker     .  .  .  .  .  -134 

CHAPTER  XIII 

Madame  de  Stael  returns  to  Coppet — The  reason  why  she 
was  not  allowed  to  go  to  Paris  —  She  decides  to  visit 
Italy— Benjamin  Constant  drags  at  his  chain — Further 
extracts  from  his  Diary      .....     147 

CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Diary  continues — Benjamin  Constant  at  Coppet — Attempt 
of  his  relatives  to  find  him  a  wife — He  goes  to  Lyons  to 
see  Madame  de  Stael  oflf  to  Italy  ....    160 


CHAPTER  XV 

Madame  de  Stall's  triumphs  in  Italy — She  "gives  perform- 
ances in  the  character  of  woman  of  letters "  —  Her 
relations  with  Monti — Benjamin  Constant  in  Paris — His 
relations  with  Madame  R^camier,  Madame  Talma,  and 
other  friends  .  .  .172 

d  XV 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PAGE 

Corinne   ........     185 


CHAPTER  XVII 

The  return  from  Italy — The  life  at  Coppet — The  visitors — 
Their  reminiscences — Descriptions  of  Coppet  by  Madame 
Vigde  Le  Brun — By  Baron  de  Voght — By  Rosalie  de 
Constant — Quarrels  with  Benjamin  Constant       .  -194 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

Theatrical  performances  at  Coppet  —  Extracts  from  the 
Journal  Intime — Benjamin  Constant  renews  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Charlotte  Dutertre — He  proposes  marriage 
and  is  accepted — Madame  de  Stael  pursues  him  and 
drags  him  back  to  Coppet  .....     206 


CHAPTER  XIX 

Stormy  scenes  at  Coppet — Benjamin's  confidences  to  his  aunt 
— His  endeavours  to  escape  —  He  joins  Charlotte  at 
Brevans        .......    223 

CHAPTER  XX 

Benjamin  marries  Charlotte  secretly — They  go  to  Paris  and 
are  happy — Madame  de  Stael  is  told — Her  wrath — Her 
sons  threaten  Benjamin  with  personal  violence  —  He 
promises  to  keep  the  secret  of  his  marriage  a  little  longer 
— He  returns  yet  again  to  Coppet — The  financial  settle- 
ment with  Madame  de  Stael  ....     233 

CHAPTER  XXI 

Mysticism  at  Coppet — Madame  de  Stael  writes  De  PAllemagne 
and  goes  to  France — Her  manuscript  is  confiscated,  and 
she  is  expelled — She  returns   to  Coppet   and   endures 
petty  persecutions  ......    244 

xvi 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XXII 


PACE 


Madame  de  Stael  makes  the  acquaintance  of  Kocca  and 
secretly  marries  him — Benjamin  and  his  wife  arrive  at 
Lausanne — Rocca  challenges  Benjamin,  but  the  duel  is 
avoided— The  Constants  start  for  Germany — Extracts 
from  Benjamin's  Journal  and  letters  .  .  .    254 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

The  campaign  of  persecution  at  Coppet — Birth  of  Madame 
de  Stael's  youngest  child — It  is  boarded  out — Madame 
de  Stael  starts  by  the  only  road  open  to  her  for  England 
— Vienna  —  Kiev  —  Moscow  —  St.  Petersburg  —  Stock- 
holm— Benjamin  Constant  at  Gottingen — His  regrets 
for  Madame  de  Stael  .....    266 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

Madame  de  Stael  arrives  in  London — Murray  the  bookseller 
publishes  De  VAIlemagne — The  qualities  and  defects  of 
the  book       .......    279 

CHAPTER  XXV 

Benjamin  Constant  at  Gottingen — His  intrigue  on  behalf  of 
the  Crown  Prince  of  Sweden — It  comes  to  nothing,  and 
he  goes  to  Paris  —  Madame  de  Stael's  letters  to  him  — 
Rocca  is  not  to  be  "a  hindrance" — Napoleon  having 
abdicated,  Madame  de  Stael  goes  to  Paris  .  .    290 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

Benjamin  Constant  in  love  with  Madame  R&amier  —  His 
account  of  the  passion  in  his  Diary — Finding  that  he 
loves  in  vain,  he  rejoins  his  wife    ....    301 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

The  Constants  in  London — The  publication  of  Adoiphe — The 

place  of  .<4</<7^A^  in  French  literature        .  .312 

xvii 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

PAGE 

In  Paris — Marriage  of  Albertine  to  the  Due  de  Broglie — 
Trouble  about  the  dowry — Madame  de  Stael  appHes  to 
Benjamin  Constant  for  money — He  refuses  it — A  quarrel 
and  a  renewal  of  friendship  •  .  .  .    324 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

Madame  de  Stael   in    Italy  with  the  Broglies  —  Return   to 

Coppet — Distinguished  guests — Byron's  visit        .  .     334 

CHAPTER  XXX 

Madame  de  Stael's  last  journey  to  Paris — Her  illness  and 

death  .......     342 

CHAPTER  XXXI 
The  last  years  of  Benjamin  Constant    .  .  .  -351 

Index     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  -365 


XVlll 


MADAME    DE    STAEL  AND 
HER    LOVERS 

CHAPTER   I 

Mademoiselle  Suzanne  Curchod — Her  flirtations  with  the  ministers 
of  religion — Her  engagement  to  Gibbon — Did  Gibbon  treat 
her  badly? — His  proposal  that  the  correspondence  should 
cease — Mademoiselle  Curchod's  flirtation  with  the  Yverdon 
lawyer — She  throws  him  over  to  marry  Necker. 

The  story,  since  it  has  no  inevitable  beginning, 
may  best  be  dated  from  the  day  when  Mademoi- 
selle Suzanne  Curchod,  the  pastor's  daughter  and 
the  village  belle,  descended  from  "  the  mountains 
of  Burgundy"  ^  and  captured  the  heart  of  the  future 
historian  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

She  who  was  presently,  as  Madame  Necker, 
to  set  the  frivolous  Parisians  the  example  which 
they  needed  of  a  prim  propriety,  was  hardly,  in 
those  days,  considered  either  prim  or  proper  in 
serious  circles  at  Lausanne.  Her  reputation,  it 
would  be  truer  to  say,  was  that  of  a  flirt  who 
flirted  with  the  extreme  audacity  of  provincial 
innocence. 

^  From  Grassier,  near  Nyon.     It  is  not  really  in  Burgundy,  but 
the  phrase  is  Gibbon's. 

A  I 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Her  earliest  recorded  flirtations  were  with  the 
ministers  of  the  gospel  who  assisted  her  father 
in  his  parochial  duties.  She  used  to  invite  their 
signatures  to  documents,  drafted  in  playful  parody 
of  legal  contracts,  whereby  they  engaged  them- 
selves "to  come  and  preach  at  Grassier  as  often 
as  she  required,  without  waiting  to  be  solicited, 
pressed,  or  entreated,  seeing  that  the  greatest 
of  their  pleasures  was  to  oblige  her  on  every 
possible  occasion."  Matrons  and  elderly  spinsters 
made  unkind  remarks,  but  the  young  clergymen 
signed  gladly.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  human 
nature  in  the  Swiss  clergy  of  those  days,  and 
a  great  many  of  them  were  poets  as  well  as 
preachers. 

At  Lausanne  the  village  beauty  opened  a 
school.  She  presents  the  figure,  perhaps  unique 
in  history,  of  a  schoolmistress  who  was  also  what 
in  the  England  of  the  same  period  would  have 
been  styled  a  "reigning  toast."  "At  the  end  of 
the  lane  which  leads  to  the  mineral  waters  of  La 
Poudrerie,  her  pupils  built  her  a  throne,  and  it 
was  there  that  she  distributed  her  praises  and  her 
prizes,  and  received  the  compliments  of  the  wits 
attracted  by  her  fame."  That  is  how  her  Academy 
is  described  by  a  contemporary  writer ;  and  Dr. 
Tissot,^  the  fashionable  Lausanne  physician,  adds, 
not  without  a  gentle  touch  of  irony  :  "  Mademoiselle 

^  Author  of  many  medical  works,  notably  an  Essai  sur  les 
maladies  des  gens  du  monde.  He  became  a  Professor  in  the 
Medical  School  at  Padua. 

2 


Mademoiselle  Curchod's  Flirtations 

Curchod  is  too  beautiful  and  too  learned  for  me 
to  venture  to  be  her  friend  ;  while  I  am  neither 
young  enough  nor  ignorant  enough  to  present 
myself  as  her  scholar." 

The  younger  citizens,  however, — and  notably 
the  clergy  and  the  theological  students, — aspired 
more  highly.  Not  only  did  they  take  part  with 
Mademoiselle  Curchod  in  Debating  Society  dis- 
cussions of  such  themes  a§  "  Does  an  element 
of  mystery  really  make  love  more  agreeable  ?  "  or 
••  Can  there  be  friendship  between  a  man  and  a 
woman  in  the  same  sense  as  between  two  women 
or  two  men  ? " — they  also  wrote  odes  and  letters 
to  her,  and  published  them  in  the  Jo^imal 
Helvitique.     For  example  : — 

"Parfaite,  Ics  Destins  vous  montrent  sur  la  terre, 
Pour  jouir  du  tribut  qu'on  doit  aux  Immortels. 

Nos  cceurs  seront  autant  d'autels 
Faits  pour  vous  presenter  un  hommage  sincere 

De  respect  et  d'amour. 
C'est  le  plus  doux  soin  de  ma  vie 
Que  de  m'en  acquitter  en  secret  chaque  jour. 

Mais  aujourd'hui  je  le  publie." 

To  which  the  poet  adds  in  prose :  "  Yes, 
charming,  or  rather  divine,  Cur  .  .  .  .  ,  I  cannot 
refuse  to  express  those  sentiments.  You,  in 
your  single  person,  furnish  the  model  of  the 
beauties  which  Zeuxis  failed  to  find  in  combina- 
tion. Though  I  should  add  to  this  beauty  the 
wisdom  of  Minerva,  rendered  amiable  by  the 
sweetness  of  the  Graces  and  the  playful  badinage 
of  Hebe,  your  portrait  would  still  be  imperfect." 

3 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

That  is  one  tribute  among  many  that  appeared. 
Three  such  tributes  are  reprinted  at  full  length  by 
Professor  Eugene  Ritter  in  a  pamphlet  entitled 
Notes  sur  Madame  de  Stael.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Gibbon,  then  a  pupil  in  the  house  of 
Pastor  Pavilliard,  felt  impelled  to  enter  the  lists 
for  such  a  prize.  He  may  even  have  felt  that 
here  was  a  challenge  which  the  honour  of  his 
country  required  him  to  take  up.  So  we  read  in 
his  diary :  '*  Saw  Mile  Curchod.  Omnia  vincit 
amor ;  et  nos  cedamus  amori."  And  a  remin- 
iscence of  Julie  von  Bondeli  ^  tells  us  that  "  he  used 
to  run  about,  like  a  madman,  in  the  fields  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Lausanne,  carrying  a  sword  in 
his  hand,  and  compelling  the  husbandmen  to  con- 
fess that  Mile  C.  was  the  most  beautiful  person 
in  the  world." 

Nor  was  Mademoiselle  Curchod,  on  her  part, 
insensible  to  the  Englishman's  attentions.  We 
have  a  portrait  of  him  from  her  pen — one  of  those 
sketches  which  it  was  then  the  fashion  for  young 
people  to  make  of  each  other,  as  essays  in  the  art 
of  composition.  "He  has  beautiful  hair,"  she 
writes,  "  a  pretty  hand,  and  the  air  of  a  man  of 
rank.  His  face  is  so  intellectual  and  so  strange 
that  I  know  no  one  like  him.  It  has  so  much 
expression  that  one  is  always  finding  something 
new  in  it.  His  gestures  are  so  appropriate  that 
they  add  much  to  his  speech.     In  a  word,  he  has 

^  A  lively  blue-stocking  from  Berne,  in  correspondence  with 
Rousseau,  Wieland,  and  other  eminent  men  of  the  age. 

4 


The  Love  Story  of  Gibbon 

one  of  those  extraordinary  faces  that  one  never 
tires  of  trying  to  depict.  He  knows  the  respect 
that  is  due  to  women.  His  courtesy  is  easy 
without  verging  on  familiarity.  He  dances 
moderately  well." 

So  there  began  the  love  story  with  which,  so 
far  at  least  as  its  main  outlines  are  concerned, 
Gibbon's  Autobiography  has  made  the  world 
familiar.  Gibbon  was  invited  to  visit  the  parson- 
age at  Grassier:  "In  a  calm  retirement  the  gay 
vanity  of  youth  no  longer  fluttered  in  her  bosom, 
and  I  might  presume  to  hope  that  I  had  made 
some  impression  on  a  virtuous  heart."  But  his 
"  dream  of  felicity  "  was  to  remain  a  dream.  His 
father  "would  not  hear  of  this  strange  alliance." 
Sighing  as  a  lover,  but  obeying  as  a  son,  he  took 
up  his  pen  and  wrote  : — 

"  I  do  not  know  how  to  begin  this  letter.  Yet 
begin  it  I  must.  I  take  up  my  pen,  I  drop  it, 
I  resume  it.  This  commencement  shows  you 
what  it  is  that  I  am  about  to  say.  Spare  me  the 
rest.  Yes,  Mademoiselle,  I  must  renounce  you 
for  ever.  The  sentence  is  passed ;  my  heart 
laments  it ;  but  in  the  presence  of  my  duty  every 
other  consideration  must  be  silent."  With  more 
in  the  same  strain,  concluding :  "  Good-bye.  I 
shall  always  remember  Mile  Curchod  as  the  most 
worthy,  the  most  charming,  of  women.  May  she 
not  entirely  forget  a  man  who  does  not  deserve 
the  despair  to  which  he  is  a  prey ! " 

Was   he   treating  her  badly?     Did  she  really 

5 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

care?  M.  d'Haussonville,  her  great-great-grand- 
son, answers  both  questions  in  the  affirmative, 
arguing  the  matter  almost  with  the  animus  of  a 
man  who  sees  in  the  jilting,  in  the  remote  past, 
of  his  great-great-grandmother  an  ineffaceable 
blot  upon  the  family  escutcheon.  As  regards  the 
former  question,  his  case  appears  to  rest  upon  an 
error  as  to  the  date  of  a  letter.  Gibbon,  he  says, 
after  leaving  Lausanne  in  1758,  kept  silence  for 
four  years,  and  then,  without  warning,  broke  off 
the  engagement  in  1762.  But  the  letter  which 
M.  d'Haussonville  dates  1762  conveys  a  saluta- 
tion to  Pastor  Curchod,  who  died  in  1760. 
Evidently,  therefore,  it  was  written,  not  in  1762, 
but  in  1758  or  1759;  and  the  charge  of  callous- 
ness at  least  falls  to  the  ground  in  consequence. 
One  is  glad  to  be  able  to  clear  Gibbon's  memory 
of  that ;  and,  for  the  rest,  it  is  sufficient  to 
remember  that  he  was  very  young  at  the  time, 
and  absolutely  dependent  upon  his  father,  and 
also  that  Mademoiselle  Curchod  herself  ceased  to 
bear  rancour  very  soon  after  the  final  breach. 
The  second  question  is  more  difficult ;  but  even 
about  that  two  things  are  clear  :  the  first,  that 
Mademoiselle  Curchod  threw  herself,  with  very 
unmaidenly  persistence,  at  Gibbon's  head ;  the 
second,  that  it  was  not  very  long  before  she 
disposed  herself  to  seek  consolation,  in  more  than 
one  quarter,  for  her  loss. 

It  was,  as  has  been  said,  in   1758  that  Gibbon 
left  Lausanne.     He  returned  there,  in  the  course 

6 


A  Proffered  Friendship 

of  the  grand  tour,  in  1763  ;  and  attempts  were 
instantly  made  to  bring  him  to  a  sense  of  his 
obligations  to  his  former  fiancde.  Pastor 
Moultou  ^  tried ;  and  a  certain  irony  attaches  to 
the  story  of  his  endeavours  from  the  fact  that  the 
Pastor  had  himself  once  sighed  at  the  feet  of 
Mademoiselle  Curchod,  but  had  ceased  to  sigh  in 
order  to  marry  another  lady  with  a  dowry  of 
105,000  florins.  Rousseau,  at  that  time  a 
fugitive  from  French  justice,  living  at  Motiers,  in 
the  Val  de  Travers,  was  induced  to  express  an 
opinion  which  provoked  from  Gibbon  the  dignified 
retort  that  "that  extraordinary  man  whom  I 
admire  and  pity  should  have  been  less  precipitate 
in  condemning  the  moral  character  and  conduct 
of  a  stranger."  But  the  chief  advances  werfe 
made  by  Mademoiselle  Curchod  herself. 

All  that  has  been  preserved  of  the  corre- 
spondence is  printed  by  M.  d'Haussonville  in 
Le  Salon  de  Madame  Necker.  It  discloses  a 
frank  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  lady  to  pick  up 
the  broken  threads  and  revive  the  relations  of  five 
years  since.  If  Gibbon  will  not  be  her  lover,  she 
begs  that  he  will  at  least  be  her  platonic  friend. 
"  Place  your  attachment  for  me,"  she  writes,  "on 
the  same  footing  as  that  of  my  other  friends,  and 
you  will  find  me  as  confiding,  as  tender,  and  at 
the  same  time  as  indifferent  as  I  am  to  them." 


^  Of  Geneva.  He  defended  Rousseau  when  Entile  was  con- 
demned to  be  burnt,  and  gave  shelter  in  his  house  to  the  family 
of  Calas. 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

He  accepts  the  proffered  friendship, — "it  bestows 
so  much  honour  upon  me  that  I  cannot  hesitate," 
— but  he  asks  that  the  correspondence  may  cease. 

"  I  am  sensible,"  he  protests,  **  of  the  pleasures 
which  it  brings  me,  but  at  the  same  time  I  am 
conscious  of  its  dangers.  I  feel  the  dangers  that 
it  has  for  me ;  I  fear  the  dangers  that  it  may 
have  for  both  of  us.  Permit  me  to  avoid  these 
dangers  by  my  silence.  Forgive  my  fears, 
Mademoiselle ;  they  have  their  origin  in  my 
esteem  for  you." 

Whereupon  there  follows  a  letter  of  tumultuous 
reproaches — a  letter  in  which  the  spretcB  injuria 
formce  not  only  speaks  out  but  cries  aloud. 
Mademoiselle  Curchod  has  rejected  other  offers 
of  marriage  for  Gibbon's  sake — and  this  is  how 
he  treats  her.  Perhaps  someone  has  told  him 
that  she  flirted  during  his  absence — it  is  false. 
Possibly  someone  has  been  coupling  her  name 
with  that  of  M.  Deyverdun  ^ — it  is  a  shame  and 
a  calumny.     And  so  on  to  the  angry  end  : — 

**  I  am  treating  you  as  an  honest  man  of  the 
world,  who  is  incapable  of  breaking  his  promise, 
of  seduction,  or  of  treachery,  but  who  has,  instead 
of  that,  amused  himself  in  racking  my  heart  with 
tortures,  well  prepared,  and  well  carried  into 
effect.  I  will  not  threaten  you,  therefore,  with 
the  wrath  of  heaven — the  expression  that  escaped 
from  me  in  my  first  emotion.     But  I  assure  you, 

^  Gibbon's  most  intimate  friend,  whose  house  he  shared  when 
he  ultimately  settled  at  Lausanne. 

8 


The  Influences  of  Heredity 

without  laying  any  claim  to  the  gift  of  prophecy, 
that  you  will  one  day  regret  the  irreparable  loss 
that  you  have  incurred  in  alienating  for  ever  the 
too  frank  and  tender  heart  of  S.  C." 

That  closed  the  passionate  episode ;  though 
the  lovers  lived,  not  only  to  be  reconciled,  but  to 
become  the  best  friends  in  the  world.  In  a  sense, 
no  doubt,  it  is  irrelevant  as  an  introduction  to  the 
story  of  Madame  de  Stael.  But  it  was  worth 
relating,  partly  for  the  sake  of  the  chance 
presented  of  vindicating  Gibbon  from  the  asper- 
sions of  M.  d'Haussonville,  and  partly  for  the 
purpose  of  taking  the  influences  of  heredity  into 
account.  One  has  heard  a  good  deal  of  the 
differences  of  character  between  Madame  Necker 
and  her  daughter,  but  the  resemblances  seem 
worthier  of  attention. 

In  each  case  equally  we  meet  reverberant 
passion  and  emphatic  insistence  on  the  right  not 
only  to  love  but  to  be  loved  ;  though,  in  the  latter 
case,  the  emotion  is  more  developed,  more  "intense, 
more  modern,  more  symptomatic  of  the  maladie 
du  Steele, — less  trammelled  by  middle-class  ideas 
about  duty  and  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie. 
Madame  de  Stael,  in  short,  might  be  described  as 
a  Parisian  Madame  Necker,  and  Madame  Necker 
as  a  provincial  Madame  de  Stael.  Or  we  might 
put  it  differently,  and  say  that  Madame  Necker 
suggests  a  Madame  de  Stael  with  a  Noncon- 
formist conscience,  and  Madame  de  Stael  a 
Madame     Necker     who     has     overstepped     the 

9 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

barriers  of  circumspection.  The  case,  at  any 
rate,  is  not  one  in  which  heredity  is  negligible  ; 
and  the  mother,  wrapped  in  contemplation  of  her 
greater  daughter's  more  signally  amorous  career, 
might  most  properly  have  exclaimed  :  "There,  but 
for  the  grace  of  God,  goes  Madame  Necker !  " 

Moreover,  a  further  point  of  likeness  between 
the  mother  and  the  daughter  may  be  found  in  the 
facility  with  which  they  could  both  transfer  an 
unrequited  affection  to  a  worthier  object.  The 
list  of  Madame  de  Stael's  attachments,  as  we 
shall  see,  is  long.  Her  mother  did  not  unduly 
protract  her  grief  for  Gibbon ;  and  the  reports 
which  reached  the  historian  of  "the  cheerfulness 
and  tranquillity  of  the  lady  herself"  are  well 
substantiated  by  the  facts.  We  have  only  to 
follow  her  career  a  little  farther  in  order  to  meet 
the  proof. 

Hardly  had  she  uttered  her  bitter  farewell  to 
her  first  love  than  she  began  to  consider  a 
proposal  of  marriage  from  a  prosperous  lawyer  of 
Yverdon.  We  have  a  letter  from  him  in  which 
he  solicits  "a  favourable  answer  by  return  of 
post " ;  and  we  have  two  interesting  letters 
setting  forth  Mademoiselle  Curchod's  view  of  the 
situation.  In  the  one  she  stipulates  that,  if  she 
accepts  M.  Correvon's  offer,  she  shall  not  be 
required  to  live  with  him  for  more  than  four 
months  in  each  year.  In  the  second  she  tells 
Pastor  Moultou — the  Pastor  who  had  once  been 
her  suitor  but  had  withdrawn  from  the  suit  for 

10 


Mile  Curchod  to  Marry  Necker 

the  sake  of  Mile  Cayla  and  her  105,000  florins — 
that  another  admirer  has  been  paying  her  atten- 
tions which  she  rather  thinks  may  be  serious,  and 
concludes  :  "  But  if  this  castle  in  the  air  collapses, 
then  I  will  marry  Correvon  next  summer."  One 
cannot  wonder  that,  as  the  castle  in  the  air  did 
not  collapse,  Correvon  felt  himself  aggrieved. 
The  news  was  broken  to  him  that  Mademoiselle 
Curchod  was  going  to  marry  the  great  Parisian 
banker,  M.  Necker,  and  he  wrote  :  "  I  see  very 
clearly  that  you  looked  upon  me  as  a  miserable 
makeshift,  and  that  you  were  looking  out  for  the 
first  opportunity  that  might  occur  to  settle  your- 
self in  Paris  or  elsewhere." 

The  taunt  undoubtedly  had  truth  in  it ;  but 
there  is  no  evidence  that  Mademoiselle  Curchod 
was  troubled  by  any  qualms.  The  romantic  and 
the  practical  met  strangely  in  her  nature.  She 
was  poor  and  a  dependent.  It  was  very  important 
to  her  to  get  married.  She  had  always  looked 
upon  marriage,  not  as  an  incident  in  the  romantic 
life,  but  as  its  appointed  happy  termination.  She 
naturally  preferred  to  make  a  good  marriage,  and 
this  was  a  great  opportunity.  M.  Necker  was 
not  only  very^  rich — he  also  had  all  the  virtues. 
So  she  was  much  too  happy  to  be  hurt  by  the 
reproaches  of  the  man  whom  she  threw  over. 
Her  happiness  bubbled  over  in  a  letter  to  a  Swiss 
confidante  : — 

"What  a  prodigious  change!  And  how  im- 
penetrable are  the  ways  of  Providence ! 

II 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  To-morrow  I  am  to  unite  my  lot  to  the  man 
whom  I  like  best  in  all  the  world.  Placed  at  the 
head  of  a  household,  surrounded  by  superfluities 
which  make  my  reason  sigh  without  bewildering 
it,  I  see  and  feel  nothing  but  the  happiness  of  my 
union  with  the  tenderest  and  most  generous  of 
souls ;  but  nothing  shall  make  me  forget  your 
kindness  to  me.  .  .  .  You  saw  me  at  the  hour 
when  I  needed  all  your  kind  sympathy  to  calm 
the  agitation  of  my  soul ;  and  had  it  not  been  for 
the  wise  counsels  of  your  husband,  my  troubles 
would  perhaps  have  precipitated  me  into  an  abyss 
of  evil.  I  assure  you  that  I  regard  that  as  one  of 
the  strongest  arguments  in  favour  of  a  special 
providential  dispensation.  I  am  marrying  a  man 
whom  I  should  believe  to  be  an  angel  if  his 
attachment  to  me  did  not  prove  his  weakness. 
He  is  called  M.  Necker,  and  is  the  brother  of 
the  Professor.  His  talents  and  his  shrewdness 
have  won  him  more  consideration  than  his  fortune, 
although  he  has  an  income  of  twenty-five  thousand 
livres." 

Gibbon,  we  may  take  it,  if  remembered,  was 
no  longer  regretted  when  Mademoiselle  Suzanne 
Curchod  wrote  that  letter — the  last  to  which  she 
subscribed  her  maiden  name.  The  sentimental 
memories  of  that  first  romance  were,  indeed,  long 
years  afterwards,  to  recur  to  her ;  but  for  the 
moment  a  new  romance  effaced  it. 


12 


CHAPTER  II 

Keeker's  genealogical  tree — How  he  got  it  and  what  he  paid  for 
it — The  Neckers  at  Geneva — The  scandalous  frivolity  of 
Louis  Necker — Jacques  Necker  in  Vernet's  and  Thelusson's 
banks— His  rise  in  life — His  courtship  of  Suzanne  Curchod 
— "  Each  became  the  other's  thurifer." 

The  statement  has  been  made — it  is  repeated  in 
both  Dr.  Stevens'  and  Lady  Blennerhassett's 
Lives  of  Madame  de  Stael — that  the  Necker 
family  was  of  British  origin  ;  but  neither  of  these 
biographers  produces  any  evidence.  The  truth 
is  that  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  value  to  be 
given,  and  that  the  legend  originated  in  this 
way. 

In  1776,  M.  Necker,  having  been  given  the 
charge  of  the  French  finances,  felt  the  need  of  a 
coat  of  arms  and  a  genealogical  tree  to  support 
his  official  dignity.  Being  wealthy,  he  could 
afford  to  pay  for  such  things ;  and  his  brother 
Louis  caused  searches  to  be  instituted  on  his 
behalf  by  both  English  and  German  experts. 
The  English  expert  furnished  the  following  in- 
formation, to  be  found  in  a  manuscript  in  the 
possession  of  the  Geneva  Historical  Society, 
copied  from  a  document  supplied  by  Louis 
Necker  himself: — 

"  It  appears  from  the  registers  that,  in  the  time 

13 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

of  William  the  Conqueror,  a  certain  Roger  N., 
in  the  public  service,  of  the  town  of  Armagh  in 
Ireland,  was  nominated  by  the  King  as  a  Com- 
missioner for  the  completion  of  the  records  of 
Domesday-book. 

"It  may  be  presumed  that  this  same  N.  bore 
arms  at  an  earlier  date,  as  the  majority  of  William 
the  Conqueror's  courtiers  were  also  soldiers.  He 
was  given  the  title  of  'miles,'  and  he  carried  a 
shield  on  which  was  a  swan,  with  its  neck 
separated  from  its  body  by  a  cut  dividing  the 
shield  into  two  parts.  The  upper  part  of  the 
shield  was  only  one-third  the  size  of  the  lower 
part. 

"In  the  reign  of  Edward  i.,  about  1293,  a 
Robert  N.,  whose  arms  were  the  same,  passed 
over  to  France,  and  settled  in  Guyenne,  then 
belonging  to  England ;  and  in  the  following 
year  the  same  Robert  returned  to  Ireland  with 
his  armorial  bearings  changed,  having  placed  at 
the  head  of  his  escutcheon  a  bunch  of  grapes, 
very  probably  added  in  honour  of  the  country  to 
which  he  had  gone,  as  it  abounded  in  vineyards. 
He  retained  his  crest,  however  (a  swan's  neck), 
with  the  motto  :  Nobilis  vita,  nobilior  mors'' 

That  is  all,  except  that  the  genealogist  pledges 
himself  to  "terminate  his  researches  to  the  com- 
plete satisfaction  of  M.  Necker  for  the  sum  of  one 
thousand  pounds.  The  fee,"  he  adds,  "  is  small, 
but  he  is  anxious  to  oblige." 

What  he  would  have  brought  to  light  if  he  had 
had  his  fee  and  continued  his  investigations,  it  is, 
of  course,  impossible  to  say.     The  fee  was  not 

14 


If 


Necker's  Genealogical  Tree 

paid ;  the  inquiries  were  not  pursued ;  and 
though  M.  Necker  adopted  the  crest  thus 
indicated  to  him,  the  verdict  must  be  "  not 
proven."  The  chain  between  N.  of  Armagh 
and  Necker  of  Geneva  consists  principally  of 
missing  links.  The  authentic  history  of  the 
family  was  supplied  by  the  German  expert,  Dr. 
J.  B.  Steinbruck,  pastor  of  the  church  of  Saint 
Peter  and  Saint  Paul  at  Stettin,  whose  charges 
were  lower.  "I  should  think,"  he  wrote,  "that 
after  all  my  labour  and  researches,  I  have  earned 
six  golden  louis " ;  and  for  that  fee  he  demon- 
strated that  all  the  various  branches  of  the  house 
of  Necker  were  descended  from  two  brothers, 
Christian  Necker,  pastor  at  Wartemberg  in 
Pomerania,  and  Matthaeus  Necker,  silk  merchant 
at  Stettin,  both  alive  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  It  is  only  the  posterity  of  the  pastor 
that  need  here  concern  us. 

Christian's  third  son,  Jean,  was  a  deacon  at 
Garz,  on  the  Oder.  Jean  Necker  had  a  son 
named  Samuel,  who  was  a  lawyer  at  Kustrin. 
He  married  Marguerite-Sophrosine  de  Labehack, 
of  Stettin,  and  was  the  father  of  Charles  Frederick 
Necker,  born  at  Kustrin,  in  Brandenburg,  on 
January  13,  1686.  Charles  Frederick  also  became 
a  lawyer,  taking  the  oath  as  a  member  of  his  pro- 
fession on  May  26,  171 1.  He  left  Kustrin  to 
act  as  travelling  tutor  to  various  young  German 
noblemen,  and  was,  furthermore,  for  some  time 
secretary    to    General    Saint    Saphorin,    British 

15 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Ambassador  at  Vienna.  In  1724  he  offered  his 
services  to  Geneva  as  honorary  Professor  of  Law 
at  the  Academy.  The  Register  of  the  Council 
of  the  Two  Hundred  for  the  i8th  of  September 
of  that  year  contains  the  following  note  on  the 
matter : — 

"  Discussion  on  the  establishment  of  a  Pro- 
fessorship of  the  Public  Law  of  Germany  and  of 
Feudal  Law,  resolved  upon  in  connection  with 
M.  Necker's  offer  to  serve  gratuitously  ;  he  being 
known  here  for  a  clever  and  honourable  man, 
acquainted  with  high  German,  which  circumstance 
may  attract  the  high  German  nobility  to  this 
town.  Concerning  which  there  were  read  two 
letters  written  by  him  from  Vienna  in  Austria, 
to  M.  de  Terrasse,  and  to  noble  Tronchin, 
formerly  Syndic,  expressing  in  very  polite  terms 
his  great  esteem  for  the  town,  and  his  desire  to 
establish  himself  here,  together  with  the  offer  of 
his  services ;  all  those  to  whom  he  is  known  in 
the  town  having  also  borne  very  favourable  witness 
to  his  good  qualities  and  his  affection  for  the 
State.  To  which  it  was  added  that  the  establish- 
ment of  this  Professorship  is  honourable  to  the 
public,  advantageous  to  the  Academy,  and  useful 
to  private  individuals,  and  that  the  functions 
thereto  appertaining  can  only  be  discharged  by 
a  German. 

"  Resolved,  therefore,  to  accept  the  said  offers 
of  M.  Necker." 

The  Professor  received  the  news  of  his  appoint- 
ment in  London,  where  he  was  staying  with  the 
Count  of  Bothmar.     He  was  in  the  service  of  the 

16 


The  Neckers  at  Geneva 

Elector  of  Hanover,  who  was  also  King  of 
England,  and  had  to  seek  the  royal  permission 
to  accept  the  post.  George  i.  not  only  gave 
permission,  but  also  granted  the  Professor  a 
pension  to  enable  him  to  open  at  Geneva  a 
boarding-school  for  English  girls  whose  parents 
desired  them  to  be  educated  on  the  Continent. 
This  school,  which  succeeded  admirably,  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  Necker  fortunes.  Its  institution, 
rather  than  any  fanciful  family  tree,  is  the  link 
which  connects  the  Neckers  with  Great  Britain. 

The  inaugural  lecture  was  delivered  in 
September  1725,  and  in  January  of  the  next 
year  the  Professor  was  admitted  to  the  bour- 
geoisie of  Geneva  without  fee,  "in  consideration 
of  his  personal  merit  and  of  the  satisfactory 
manner  in  which  he  discharges  his  duties."  In 
1734  he  was  made  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
the  Two  Hundred,  and  from  1742  to  1747  he 
was  a  member  of  the  Consistory.  He  married 
Jeanne- Marie  Gautier  of  Geneva,  and  had  two 
sons — Louis  and  Jacques. 

Louis,  commonly  known  as  Necker  de  Germany, 
from  an  estate  near  Geneva  which  he  inherited, 
became  a  Professor  like  his  father,  but  tarnished 
the  respectability  of  the  family  by  his  behaviour. 
The  only  reason  for  recalling  the  scandal  of  which 
he  was  the  hero  is  that  it  throws  a  certain  light  upon 
the  manners  and  tone  of  the  Genevan  society  of 
the  period,  but  for  that  reason  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  quote  Julie  von  Bondeli's  account  of  it. 
B  17 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"It  is,"  she  writes,  "a  Madame  Vernes,  a 
merchant's  wife,  who  has  had  an  affair  of 
gallantry  with  Professor  Necker.  That  lady  is 
not  Rousseau's  Julie ;  but  Rousseau,  in  his  letter 
to  d'Alembert,  said  that  there  had  never  been  a 
woman  of  genius  except  *  Sappho  and  one  other,' 
and  that  'one  other'  is  said  to  be  Madame 
Vernes,  whom  Rousseau  saw  at  Geneva  in  '53 
or  '54.  Madame  V.  was  the  daughter  of  an 
indigent  attorney.  Vernes,  who  is  rich,  saw  her 
in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  his  parents,  and, 
being  unable  to  marry,  became  the  father  of  a 
child  which  she  bore  him  without  any  public 
scandal,  and  without  losing  her  reputation  for 
being  as  virtuous  as  she  was  beautiful  and  clever. 
At  last  Vernes  obtains  the  consent  of  his  parents, 
and,  to  the  general  astonishment,  there  appears 
in  church  with  him  a  child  eighteen  months  old. 
Papa  and  mamma  were,  according  to  the  chaste 
laws  of  their  country,  thrown  into  prison  ;  but  the 
parents  worshipped  the  bride,  and  the  public  not 
only  forgave  but  idolised  her.  Never  before  had 
such  a  thing  been  seen  in  this  pure  and  holy  city. 

"At  the  birth  of  her  second  child  she  had  an 
abscess  inconveniently  situated,  and  the  treatment 
of  it  tortured  her  for  three  years.  She  set  an 
example  of  stoicism.  Her  chamber  was  an 
Academy,  and  her  bed  the  tribunal  of  grace, 
virtue,  and  genius.  Never  did  a  woman  enjoy 
such  a  beautiful  reputation.  Tronchin  ^  cured  her. 
Necker  fell  in  love  with  her.  The  husband 
discovered  letters,  treacherously  fired  a  pistol  at 
the  lover,  and  then  ran  away  in  despair.  The 
matter  was  hushed  up  for  a  fortnight ;   but  the 

^  The  famous  physician  of  Geneva. 
18 


Jacques  Necker 


tribunes  of  the  people  made  inquiries,  and  the 
public  prosecutor  would  not  belie  his  oath. 
Necker  denied  that  the  husband  had  wounded 
him,  and  the  lady  backed  him  up ;  but  the 
surgeon  who  was  called  in  found  out  the  truth. 
The  husband  surrendered  himself  to  justice  as 
a  murderer ;  but  Necker  saved  him  from  the 
scaffold  by  denying  that  he  was  anything  of  the 
kind,  and  submitted  to  a  sentence  of  perpetual 
banishment.  .  .  .  The  lady  withdrew  to  Savoy. 
Six  months  afterwards  she  returned  to  Geneva, 
and  so  artfully  rehabilitated  her  reputation  that 
people  only  regarded  her  as  imprudent  and 
unfortunate.  That  done,  she  went  to  join  Necker 
at  Cadiz." 

Such  is  the  story,  on  which  it  seems  superfluous 
to  moralise,  though  it  may  have  its  significance 
to  the  student  of  heredity  as  the  first  indication 
of  warm  blood  pulsing  in  the  veins  of  a  family 
chiefly  famous  for  dry  legal  erudition  and  dry 
financial  genius.  Our  business  now  is  to  follow 
the  fortunes  of  the  younger  and  more  gifted 
brother. 

He  was  the  very  type  of  the  man  who,  by 
sheer  will,  succeeds  in  a  calling  for  which  he  has 
more  aptitude  than  inclination.  Having  to  be 
a  banker,  he  resolved  to  be  a  good  banker ;  but 
he  would  far  rather  have  been  something  else — 
a  scholar,  for  instance,  or  a  comic  poet.  At 
Geneva  he  was  scholar  enough  to  take  a  prize 
over  the  heads  of  lads  mostly  two  years  his 
senior.     In  Paris  he  was  sufficiently  a  comic  poet 

19 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

to  write  comic  poetry,  though  he  refused  to 
publish  it.  "To  have  done  so,"  he  said,  "would 
have  affected  my  whole  career.  The  reputation 
of  a  comic  author  has  never  been  compatible 
with  the  serious  dignity  required  from  a  Prime 
Minister."  Countrymen  of  Canning  caqnot  be 
expected  to  assent  to  that  opinion.  But  it  is 
possible — it  is  even  probable — that  Necker's  light 
verse  was  not  so  good  as  Canning's,  and  in  that 
case  he  was  wise  in  suppressing  it. 

It  was  as  a  clerk  in  Vernet's  bank  that  he 
began  his  financial  career.  He  was  speedily  pro- 
moted to  be  head  clerk ;  and  Vernet,  on  retiring 
from  business,  showed  his  appreciation  of  his 
services  by  financing  him  as  a  partner  of  the 
Thelussons ;  and  Thelusson's,  under  his  direc- 
tion, soon  became  the  greatest  banking-house 
in  France.  In  this  way  he  had  already  reached 
a  great  position  when  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Mademoiselle  Suzanne  Curchod. 

Mademoiselle  Curchod  had  just  taken  a  situa- 
tion as  "companion"  to  Madame  Vermenoux, 
a  widow  and  a  lady  of  fashion,  who  sometimes 
made  her  feel  that  she  was  not  quite  fashionable 
enough  for  the  post  Steinlen,  in  his  Life  of 
Bonstetten,  tells  us  how  Madame  Vermenoux 
sometimes  snubbed  her.  "  Gc  lut  of  the  room, 
Mademoiselle,"  she  said  to  u  •,  <^"and  return, 
making  another  curtsey.  I  do  not  wish  you  to 
make  me  ashamed  of  you  at  Paris."  Necker 
was,  at  the  time,  paying  his  addresses  to  Madame 

20 


Transferred  Affections 

Vermenoux,  and,  somehow  or  other,  it  came 
about  that  he  transferred  his  affections  from  the 
mistress  to  the  companion. 

Naturally  there  are  two  versions  of  the  story. 
The  one  is  that  the  companion  deliberately  set 
herself  to  "cut  out"  her  mistress ;  the  other  that 
the  mistress  herself  contrived  the  marriage  in 
order  to  get  rid  of  an  unwelcome  suitor.  The 
latter  view  is  maliciously  stated  in  the  Memoirs 
of  the  Baronne  d'Oberkirch.^ 

"  For  my  part,  I  did  not  like  M.  Necker.  I  was 
struck  with  his  incredible  likeness  to  Cagliostro, 
though  he  lacked  Cagliostro's  sparkling  eyes  and 
dazzling  expression.  He  was,  as  it  were,  a  con- 
strained Cagliostro,  of  stiff,  unpleasant  manners ; 
there  was  nothing  agreeable  about  him  except 
his  determination  to  make  himself  agreeable. 
Madame  Necker  is  still  worse.  In  spite  of  the 
high  positions  which  she  has  occupied,  she  is  a 
schoolmistress  and  nothing  more.  The  daughter 
of  a  village  pastor  named  Curchod,  she  was  given 
an  excellent  education,  from  which  she  profits  in 
a  perverse  kind  of  way.  She  is  beautiful  with- 
out being  agreeable,  and  benevolent  without 
making  herself  beloved.  Her  body,  her  mind, 
and  her  heart  are  all  wanting  in  grace.  God, 
before  creating  h  ^,r,  must  have  soaked  her,  in- 
side and  out,  in  «:'arch.  She  will  never  acquire 
the  art  of  pleasin^^J  To  sum  it  up  in  a  sentence, 
she  can  neither  weep  nor  smile.     Her  father  was 

^  An  Alsatian  lady.  Her  Memoirs  are  among  our  best  sources 
of  information  concerning  social  conditions  in  Paris  just  before 
the  Revolution. 

21 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

poor;  she  set  up  a  girls'  school  at  Geneva,  and 
was  brought  to  Paris  by  Madame  Vermenoux, 
who  is  well  known  for  her  beauty  and  her  addic- 
tion to  gallantry.  This  Madame  de  Vermenoux 
was  on  intimate  terms  with  Abb6  Raynal,  with 
M.  de  Marmontel,  with  other  philosophers,  and 
with  M.  Necker.  The  last-named  bored  her, 
and  I  am  quite  sure  he  would  have  bored  me  just 
as  much.  It  occurred  to  her  to  get  rid  of  him  by 
marrying  him  to  Mademoiselle  Curchod. 

"  '  They  will  bore  each  other  so  much,'  she  said, 
'  that  they  will  be  provided  with  an  occupation.' 

"  They  did  not  bore  each  other,  but  they  bored 
all  the  rest  of  the  world,  worshipping  each  other, 
paying  compliments  to  each  other,  burning  incense 
to  each  other  without  cessation.  Each  became 
the  other's  thurifer.  Madame  Necker  in  par- 
ticular became  the  thurifer  of  her  husband." 

The  spite  is  here  too  frankly  exhibited  for  the 
narrative  to  inspire  much  confidence ;  but  the 
truth,  so  far  as  one  can  spell  it  out,  seems  to  be 
this :  that  Madame  Vermenoux  did  really  want 
to  pass  on  M.  Necker  to  her  companion,  but  that 
the  companion  did  not  know  it,  and  conscientiously 
believed  herself  to  be  poaching  on  her  mistress's 
preserves.  One  infers  that,  in  the  first  place, 
from  the  fact  that  the  marriage  was  a  secret 
one,  and  in  the  second  place,  from  a  passage 
in  a  letter  from  Madame  Necker  to  Pastor 
Moultou :  "  I  wish  that  she  would  not  attribute 
our  marriage  to  her  own  action.  I  am  rather 
offended  with  her ;  and  my  husband,  who  says  I 

22 


A  Happy  Marriage 

am  the  only  woman  he  ever  loved,  is  annoyed  at 
her  speeches." 

Whatever  the  origin  of  the  marriage,  however, 
its  result  was  happiness.  To  be  happy,  and  yet 
to  be  well-conducted,  was  with  Madame  Necker 
almost  an  instinct.  Her  goal  had  always  been  a 
home  and  a  high  position  in  society.  She  had 
won  it ;  she  was  satisfied  with  it ;  she  adorned  it. 
She  had  no  craving  for  new  sentimental  sensa- 
tions— no  restless  need  for  a  grand  passion  to  fill 
an  empty  life.  Platonic  friendships,  perhaps, — 
the  appreciation  of  these  appears  in  the  corre- 
spondence with  Thomas,  and  Gibbon,  and  others, 
— but  decidedly  no  grand  passions.  That  was  to 
be  the  line  of  cleavage  between  the  mother  and 
the  daughter :  the  mother,  who  had  the  Grassier 
parsonage  and  the  Genevan  Puritanism  close 
behind  her,  and  whose  life  was  amply  filled  by 
her  cares  for  her  husband  and  her  salon ;  the 
daughter,  removed  by  a  generation  from  these 
pious  and  simple  antecedents,  beginning  to  live 
at  a  time  when  strange  convulsions  were  shaking 
the  foundations  of  a  corrupt  society,  an  dmigrde 
cut  adrift  from  such  moorings  as  a  fixed  place  in 
any  fatherland  might  have  afforded — thrown  back 
upon  sentiment  as  the  one  reality  which,  incarnate 
in  many  shapes,  could  still  make  life  possible  and 
even  tolerable.  Our  business  here  shall  be  with 
the  fierce  sentimental  strivings  of  that  tempestuous 
career. 


23 


CHAPTER   III 

The  grandeur  of  the  Neckers — Madame  Necker  and  her  poor 
relations — Birth  of  a  daughter — Her  education  in  a  salon — 
And  in  a  garden — Necker  in  office — And  out  of  office — A 
course  of  foreign  travel  —  The  purchase  of  Coppet  —  The 
place  of  exile. 

The  Neckers  grew  in  grandeur.  M.  Necker's 
Eloge  de  Colbert  was  **  crowned"  by  the 
Academy;  from  1768  he  was  the  accredited 
diplomatic  representative  of  Geneva  at  the  Court 
of  Versailles;  in  1776  he  was  called  to  the 
direction  of  the  French  Exchequer.  The  in- 
creasing dignity  is  reflected  in  many  of  Madame 
Necker's  letters  ^ — especially  in  those  which  define 
her  attitude  towards  her  poor  relations  in  the 
Canton  of  Vaud. 

She  was  very  good  to  them,  though  they  were 
very  exacting.  She  paid  children's  school  bills, 
and  gave  annuities  to  aunts.  But  when  cousins 
propose  to  visit  her — that  is  another  matter.  A 
certain  Cousin  Toton,  it  seems,  was  anxious  to 
come.  "  Could  I  have  the  audacity,"  Madame 
Necker  asks,  "  to  make  her  change  her  name, 
and  disavow  my  relationship  to  her?  Even  if 
I  were  willing  to  do  so,  would  my  husband  and 
my   servants   keep   my   secret  ?     On    the    other 

^  Published  in  Etrennes  HelvStiques  in  1901. 
24 


Madame  Necker's  Poor  Relations 

hand,  how  could  I  introduce  her  as  my  relation 
in  a  house  frequented  by  persons  of  all  ranks  in 
society,  and  in  which,  to  be  appropriately  dressed, 
she  would  have  to  spend  at  least  a  thousand 
French  crowns  a  year  ?  To  say  nothing  of  her 
manners,  her  way  of  speaking,  and  a  thousand 
other  trifles  which,  without  detracting  from  her 
real  merit,  would  make  the  most  unfortunate 
impression  in  a  country  in  which  people  judge 
by  appearances?"  And  Madame  Necker  begs 
her  correspondent  not  to  show  Toton  her  letter, 
but  to  acquaint  her  with  its  contents,  toning  them 
down  and  making  them  as  palatable  as  possible. 

The  thing  was  done ;  but  Toton  had  to  be 
admonished,  in  a  further  letter,  for  her  unreason- 
able jealousy. 

"  I  am  sure,  from  the  knowledge  I  have  of 
her  character  and  her  talents,  that  she  would 
not  have  endured  for  six  months  the  role  which 
I  am  filling.  She  seems  to  imagine  that,  in 
marrying  M.  Necker,  I  have  acquired  the  right 
— or  almost  so — of  reducing  him  to  a  narrow 
life  on  a  small  income,  and  dispensing  his  fortune 
in  accordance  with  my  whims. 

"  M.  Necker,  while  leaving  me  the  greatest 
liberty,  most  reasonably  desires  to  satisfy  his 
own  tastes,  to  live  with  dignity,  and  to  receive 
in  his  house  a  society  which  requires  from  me 
the  greatest  consideration  and  a  kind  of  tact 
which  I  have  much  difficulty  in  acquiring.  If 
I  asked  him  to  live  differently,  if  I  introduced 
excessive  economies  into  his  establishment,  if  I 

25 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

were  cross  and  ill-tempered  about  such  things, 
I  should  soon  be  an  object  of  indifference  to 
him — I  might  even  say  of  dislike.  A  husband 
to  whom,  after  the  Supreme  Being,  one  owes 
everything — a  husband  who  enjoys  considera- 
tion, who  has  cultivated  tastes  and  a  refined 
wit,  cannot  be  treated  as  one  would  treat 
M.  Puthod.  I  have  told  you,  Madame,  more  than 
was  necessary  for  the  enlightenment  of  a  mind 
so  intelligent  as  yours.  I  am  persuaded  that 
your  intelligence  and  your  knowledge  of  men 
and  things  have,  more  than  once,  caused  you  to 
place  yourself  in  my  position ;  but  my  cousin 
seems  to  me  to  be  capable  of  holding  only  one 
idea  in  her  head  at  a  time." 

The  argument  seems  reasonable  enough,  though 
the  tone  strikes  one  as  excessively  self-righteous. 
There  is  something  in  the  letter,  in  fact,  which 
helps  to  explain  why  the  writer's  Parisian  friends 
were  so  fond  of  scoffing  at  her  as  "the  school- 
mistress " — why  she  never  really  succeeded  in 
becoming  a  popular  exponent  of  the  virtues 
which  she  practised  and  adorned — why  Gibbon, 
on  resuming  his  friendship  with  her,  was  obliged 
to  "laugh  at  her  Paris  varnish,  and  oblige  her 
to  become  a  simple,  reasonable  Suissesse."  Here, 
however,  one  can  only  briefly  note  its  unconscious 
self-revelations,  and  must  then  pass  on  to  record 
the  birth  of  Madame  Necker's  only  daughter. 

Anne- Louise -Germaine  Necker  was  born  in 
Paris  on  April  22,  1766,  and  was  brought  up  in 
a  salon.     That  summary  may  almost  suffice.     To 

26 


Education  in  a  Salon 

draw  the  picture,  one  has  little  to  do  but  to  recite 
the  names  and  imagine  the  illustrious  bearers  of 
them  presenting  themselves  on  Fridays  :  Diderot 
and  d'Alembert,  the  Encyclopaedists,  the  Abbds 
Morellet,  Raynal,  and  Galiani,  Baron  Grimm,^ 
Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  to  be  famous  presently 
as  the  author  of  Paul  et  Virginie,  Dr.  Tronchin, 
the  fashionable  physician,  M.  de  Marmontel, 
Madame  Necker's  platonic  friend  Thomas,  MM. 
Saint-Lambert  and  Suard,  Lord  Stormont,  "  the 
handsome  Englishman,"  and,  on  certain  occasions, 
Gibbon  and  David  Hume.  In  the  midst  of  them, 
the  little  girl  sat  bolt  upright  on  a  high  chair, 
listening,  listening,  listening.  That  early  spell 
of  silence,  says  a  wit,  lasted  her  for  the  rest  of 
her  life  ;  though  it  is  surely  an  excess  of  cynicism 
to  demand  silence  from  those  who  are  able  to 
talk  well.  The  time  came  too  when  she  talked 
as  well  as  listened.  The  celebrities  drew  her  out, 
discussing  all  imaginable  topics  with  the  child, 
just  as  with  a  grown-up  person.  Marmontel 
wrote  verses  to  her.  Little  essays  which  she 
wrote  were  circulated  by  Grimm,  in  his  corre- 
spondence, in  proof  of  her  remarkable  precocity. 

Then  came  illness — that  vague,  unclassifiable 
disturbance  of  the  nerves  which  so  often  stands 
waiting  for  precocious  genius  on  the  threshold  of 
maturity — an   incomprehensible   malady  akin    to 

^  The  lover  of  Madame  d'Epinay,  and  the  originator  of  the 
Correspondence  Litt^raire — a  circular  letter  of  literary  gossip  to 
which  German  princes  subscribed. 

27 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

that  which  overtook  Disraeli  after  the  writing  of 
Vivian  Grey,  and  sent  him  on  his  first  foreign 
travels.  Dr.  Tronchin  was  called  in — the  same 
Dr.  Tronchin  who  had  dared  to  open  the  windows 
at  the  palace  of  Versailles.  He  decreed  fresh 
air  and  idleness.  The  child  had  been  living  an 
unnatural  life  in  a  forcing-house.  Her  mother 
had  been  too  zealous  for  her  education.  Let  her 
go  out  into  the  garden  and  stay  there. 

So  Germaine  Necker  was  sent  to  Saint-Ouen 
with  her  friend,  Mademoiselle  Huber  ^ — to  the 
great  chagrin  of  her  mother,  who  could  not 
accompany  her  because  of  her  social  duties,  and 
who  was  far  too  much  of  a  pedant  to  understand 
that  it  may  be  good  for  a  child  to  be  left  to  grow 
up  without  the  constant  supervision  of  adults. 
"A  life  of  poetry,"  writes  her  cousin  and  first 
biographer,  Madame  Necker  de  Saussure, 
"succeeded  to  a  life  of  study,  and  her  abundant 
energies  found  a  more  imaginative  expression. 
She  ran  about  in  the  shrubberies  of  Saint-Ouen 
with  her  friend ;  and  the  two  girls,  dressed  up  as 
nymphs  or  muses,  used  to  recite  verses,  or 
compose  poems  and  dramas  of  all  kinds,  and 
to  act  them."  The  poems  and  stories  which 
she  liked  best,  says  the  same  authority,  were 
those  which  made  her  weep.  We  note  the  fact 
as  the  first  fore-warning  of  the  gift  of  tears,  to 
be  bestowed  on  her  abundantly. 

*  Afterwards    Madame    Rilliet.      She  remained  on    terms    of 
intimacy  with  Madame  de  Stael  until  the  end. 

28 


Neckers  Dismissal  ^ 

Anecdotes  of  her  girlhood  abound,  and  may 
be  sought  in  the  works  of  Dr.  Stevens,  Lady 
Blennerhassett,  and  M.  d'Haussonville.  They 
prove  that  she  adored  her  father — a  king  of  men 
to  her,  though  to  Gibbon  only  a  "  sensible,  good- 
natured  creature  "  ;  that  she  respectfully  accepted, 
rather  than  idolised,  her  mother ;  that,  in  spite  of 
the  interruption  of  her  studies,  her  precocity  con- 
tinued to  excite  remark.  Madame  Necker,  in  fact, 
somewhat  lost  interest  in  a  daughter  whom,  as  she 
no  longer  educated  her,  she  could  no  longer  take 
pride  in  as  "her  work";  but  M.  Necker  encouraged 
her,  albeit  checking  her  extravagances  with  gentle 
raillery.  "  To  his  incredible  insight,"  she  often 
said,  "  I  owe  the  frankness  of  my  character.  .  .  . 
He  stripped  the  mask  from  my  affectations." 

The  first  public  event  that  meant  much  to  her 
was  M.  Necker's  dismissal  in  1781  from  the 
office  assigned  to  him  in  1776;  his  policy  of 
retrenchment  being  unpopular  with  influential 
persons  who  found  their  salaries  reduced  or  their 
sinecures  abolished.  He  justified  himself  in  his 
famous  Compte  rendu  sur  les  finances,  and  replied 
to  Calonne's  attack  on  the  Compte  rendu  in  the 
Press,  but  the  day  came  when  he  was  bidden  to 
betake  himself  at  least  forty  leagues  from  Paris. 
"  An  exile  appeared  to  me,"  writes  his  daughter, 
"  the  most  cruel  act  that  could  be  committed.  I 
exclaimed  in  despair  when  I  heard  of  it.  I  could 
not  conceive  of  a  greater  misfortune." 

Afterwards,   it  may  be,   looking  back  on   the 
29 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

event,  she  could  see  in  her  father's  misfortune  the 
premonition  of  her  own.  The  condemnation  to 
reside  at  least  forty  leagues  from  Paris  was  to  be, 
in  her  case,  not  only  a  trouble  but  a  cause  of 
trouble.  Through  it,  she  was  to  live  as  the 
sensitive  plant  uprooted,  and  to  be  driven  to  seek 
sentimental  solace  with  characteristic  desperation. 
She  could  not  be  expected  to  foresee  that  then, 
however ;  and  exile  for  the  moment  meant  only 
retirement  to  a  country  estate  at  Marolles,  an 
excursion  to  the  watering-place  of  Plombieres  for 
her  mother's  health,  a  visit  to  Buffon,  the 
naturalist,  at  Montbard,  and  a  course  of  foreign 
travel.  Lausanne,  among  other  places,  was  re- 
visited. "  I  saw  there,"  writes  Bonstetten,  who 
came  to  see  them,  "  the  future  Madame  de  Stael,  in 
all  the  charm  of  youth,  of  intellect,  and  of  coquetry." 
They  met  other  old  friends  there — many  of  them 
fugitives  from  the  justice  of  Louis  xvi.  Gibbon 
was  living  there,  and  his  picture  of  the  company 
in  a  letter  to  Lord  Sheffield  is  like  a  paragraph 
from  a  society  paper. 

"A  few  weeks  ago  I  was  walking  on  our 
terrace  with  M.  Tissot,  our  celebrated  physician  ; 
M.  Mercier,  the  author  of  the  Tableau  de  Paris',  the 
Abbe  Raynal ;  Monsieur,  Madame,  and  Made- 
moiselle Necker;  the  Abbd  de  Bourbon,  a  natural 
son  of  Lewis  the  Fifteenth  ;  the  Hereditary  Prince 
of  Brunswick,  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia,  and  a 
dozen  Counts,  Barons,  and  extraordinary  persons." 

It  was  about  this  time,  too, — his  daughter  being 

30 


The  Purchase  of  Coppet  i 

then  eighteen  years  of  age, — that  M.  Necker 
bought  the  property  of  Coppet  from  his  old 
partner,  Thelusson,  paying  for  it  500,000  livres  in 
French  money,  together  with  about  one-third  of 
that  sum,  in  taxes  due  on  the  transfer,  to  the 
Bernese  Government. 

The  house  and  grounds  have  hardly  been 
altered,  if  at  all,  since  the  day  when  the  banished 
banker — not  feeling  the  less  an  exile  because  he 
was  in  his  own  and  his  wife's  native  country — took 
possession  of  them.  Thousands  of  trippers  have 
trooped  there  under  guidance  ;  most  of  them,  per- 
haps, gaping  and  wondering  why  they  have  been 
brought  there,  and  what  are  these  stories  that 
their  guide  is  telling  them  in  a  strange  tongue,  so 
hard  to  follow  when  it  is  spoken  fast ;  a  few  of 
them — a  very  few  in  these  personally  conducted 
days — silently  moved  by  the  many  memories 
which  the  scene  evokes. 

One  enters  a  spacious  courtyard  through  a 
vaulted  gate,  passing  the  old  tower  containing  the 
"  archives "  which  hold  so  many  secrets,  still 
only  partially  revealed.  One  climbs  a  broad 
staircase,  and  notes  that  the  walls  are  embellished 
with  armorial  bearings — for  M.  Necker,  as  we 
have  seen,  shared  the  Swiss  delight  in  these 
decorative  links  with  the  past,  and  was  easily 
persuaded  of  his  personal  title  to  them.  One 
passes  through  bedchambers  severely  luxurious 
in  eighteenth-century  style.  One  walks  through 
a  French  window  on  to  a  balcony,  and  looks  down 

31 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

over  a  garden,  and  out  over  the  blue  lake  to  the 
dark  forested  hills  of  Savoy.  One  lingers  longest 
in  the  large  drawing-room,  with  its  portraits  and 
other  relics  of  the  past,  inviting  slow  inspection  ; 
and  the  most  interesting  moment  is  when  the 
guide — that  decorous  and  distinguished  family 
retainer — points  to  one  particular  miniature,  and 
says,  in  tones  suggesting  that  the  matter  really  is  of 
no  importance  :  "M.  Benjamin  Constant — homme 
de  lettres  qui  visitait  le  chateau  de  temps  en  temps." 
For  then  one  knows,  or  may  know  if  one  cares  to, 
that  he  has  touched,  though  lightly,  and  as  if  he 
would  hush  it  up,  the  fringe  of  the  great  love  story 
which  gives  a  visit  to  Coppet  its  real  interest. 

Still  thinking  of  that  love  story,  one  escapes 
from  guidance,  and  passes  out  through  a  gateway 
to  roam  at  leisure  in  the  park.  Here  are  straight 
avenues  of  trees — "  her  friends  who  watched  over 
her  destiny,"  as  Madame  de  Stael  was  to  call 
them.  Here  is  a  spacious  central  meadow, 
bordered  by  a  stream  spanned  by  rustic  bridges. 
Here  are  benches  to  sit  down  upon ;  here  flowers 
grow,  and  here  a  fountain  bubbles.  Sylvan, 
Arcadian — those  are  the  epithets  that  come  to 
mind.  One  expects  shepherds  and  shepherdesses, 
as  in  a  Watteau  picture  ;  and  one  knows  what  real 
shepherds  and  shepherdesses  have  here  disported 
themselves — what  eclogues  they  have  chanted — 
how  they  have  loved,  and  quarrelled,  and  been 
reconciled.  We  shall  meet  them,  and  tell  of  their 
loves  and  quarrels  presently. 

32 


The  Place  of  Exile 

Truly  a  gilded  exile — a  place  to  make  one  in 
love  with  exile,  if  that  could  ever  be — but  an  exile, 
none  the  less,  and  therefore  in  some  sense  bitter 
to  those  who  came  to  dwell  in  it.  For 
Necker  was  to  come  there  to  die,  expelled  first 
by  an  ungrateful  king,  and  then  by  an  ungrateful 
people — the  pilot  who  had  failed  to  weather  the 
storm.  And  Necker's  daughter  was  to  come 
there  to  live  otherwise  than  as  she  wished — to  feel 
herself  not  a  flower  duly  planted  in  the  garden, 
but  an  uprooted  flower  flung  upon  the  grass — a 
mere  spectator  of  the  drama  in  which  she  wished 
to  be  an  actor — thrown  back  upon  her  passions, 
and  striving  to  make  some  sort  of  a  life  for  herself 
somehow  by  their  treacherous  aid. 


33 


CHAPTER   IV 

Mademoiselle  Necker's  early  writings — Her  secrets  revealed  in 
her  short  stories — Her  love  for  General  Guibert — The  match- 
makers at  work — Marriage  to  the  Baron  de  Stael-Holstein. 

The  real  exile,  of  which  the  journey  to  Switzerland 
was,  in  some  sense,  a  foretaste,  was  still,  however, 
to  be  delayed  for  a  good  many  years.  Necker 
was  back  again  in  Paris  presently,  and  Madame 
Necker  again  had  her  salon  there,  though  its 
character  was  somewhat  altered,  and  the 
philosophers  gave  way  to  the  politicians.  The 
ex- Minister  was  a  personage,  though  out  of  favour 
with  the  Court.  Moderate  reformers  rallied  round 
him,  and  his  ultimate  recall  to  office  might  be 
foreseen.  His  daughter  had  reached  a  marriage- 
able age,  and  a  husband  had  to  be  found  for 
her. 

Mademoiselle  Necker  had  not  inherited  her 
mother's  beauty,  though  even  that  beauty,  if  we 
may  trust  the  judgment  of  a  modern  taste  upon 
the  collection  of  portraits  at  Coppet,  was  much 
exaggerated  by  complimentary  report.  At  the 
most  she  possessed  only  the  beauU  du  Diable, 
and  her  chief  charm  was  in  her  vivacity  and 
intelligence.  It  would  have  been  premature  to 
say  of  her  as  yet,  as  was  said  afterwards,  that  she 

34 


Mile  Necker's  Early  Writings 

combined  the  heart  of  a  woman  with  the  brain  of 
a  man,  but  the  tendencies  which  were  presently 
to  call  forth  that  verdict  must  already  have  been 
discernible.  She  had  begun  to  write,  though  not 
to  publish.  We  have  seen  how  her  childish 
essays — mostly  "characters"  of  her  friends  and 
acquaintances — were  copied  and  exhibited  by 
Grimm.  At  the  time  of  her  father's  disgrace, 
when  she  was  only  fifteen,  she  delighted  him  with 
an  anonymous  letter  of  sympathy,  the  authorship 
of  which  he  speedily  divined.  A  little  later  she 
wrote  comedies,  tragedies,  short  stories.  It  is 
worth  while  to  glance  back  at  the  writings,  not 
critically,  but  in  order  to  satisfy  ourselves  upon 
what  plane  of  ideas  this  precocious  child  was 
moving. 

We  need  not  wonder  at  finding  the  note 
melancholy  and  even  morbid.  That  is  the  note 
of  youth,  and  especially  of  the  youth  of  the  North, 
when  artistically  gifted  and  able  to  stand  aloof 
from  the  battle  of  life.  The  girl  had  more 
German  than  French  blood  in  her  veins,  and 
morbid  literary  influences  were  prevalent.  The 
sorrows  of  Werther  had  temporarily  unbalanced 
some  of  the  sanest  minds — the  mind,  for  instance, 
of  Ramond  de  Carbonniere,  subsequently  to  be 
known  as  the  hardy  pioneer  of  the  Pyrenees,  who 
made  his  d^but  as  the  author  of  a  drama  relating 
the  adventures  of  a  youth  whose  way  out  of  an 
impasse  of  the  affections  was  to  wander  over  the 
world   in   disguise   and   finally  to   blow   out   his 

35 


Madame  dc  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

brains  amid  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  castle.  In 
sprinkling  her  pages  with  death  in  many  a  shape, 
Mademoiselle  Necker  was  only  swimming,  or 
drifting,  with  the  literary  tide.  Her  problems 
and  her  solutions  were  equally  taken  from  the 
common  stock ;  she  added  nothing  to  it. 

More  significant,  in  view  of  her  tender  age,  are 
the  sentiments  which  transpire  with  regard  to  love 
and  marriage.  She  is  already  thinking  of  love 
as  something  apart  from  marriage — something 
which  has  as  little  to  do  with  marriage  as  Lord 
Melbourne  considered  that  religion  ought  to  have 
to  do  with  private  life.  In  Sophie  ou  les  sentimens 
secrets^  we  see  love  threatening  to  break  up 
.,  domestic  peace.  Sophie,  the  orphan  girl,  is  in 
•love  with  her  guardian,  who  is  the  husband  of  her 
dearest  friend.  In  Adelaide  et  Theodore  we  have 
a  heroine  who  goes  to  her  marriage  as  to  her 
doom,  not  loving  her  husband,  and  sure  that  she 
will  never  love  him,  lamenting  the  end  of  all 
sentimental  things. 

*'  Adelaide  was  in  despair.  Her  romantic  dream 
of  happiness  was  destroyed.  She  resisted  longer 
than  might  have  been  expected  from  a  girl  of  her 
age  ;  but,  at  a  ball,  consent  was  at  last  wrung  from 
her.  On  the  morrow  of  the  fatal  day  she  wrote 
a  letter  full  of  melancholy  to  her  aunt.  '  There 
is  no  more  hope  for  me,'  she  said.  'They  have 
robbed  me  of  my  future.  The  happiness  of  loving 
is  for  ever  forbidden  to  me.  I  shall  die  without 
knowing  what  life  is.     Nothing  that  can  happen 

36 


Love  Apart  from  Marriage 

can  concern  me  any  more.  All  things  are  one  to 
me.'  A  few  days  later  she  wrote :  '  I  must  let 
my  senses  be  dazed.  I  must  let  myself  be  caught 
in  the  whirlwind  of  life.  For  me  there  is  neither 
happiness  nor  unhappiness  any  longer.  I  can  no 
more  take  pleasure  in  dreaming.  I  yield  to  the 
torrent.  I  love  whatever  makes  the  time  pass 
faster.'" 

And  then  follows  the  story  of  the  marriage, 
with  a  striking  expression  of  disdain  for  the 
unhappy  husband.  The  young  bride  is  the  queen 
of  the  Parisian  salons,  and  yet — "  In  the  midst  of 
her  transports  of  joy  at  the  fUes  and  her  success 
in  them,  Adelaide  was  always  kind  to  her  husband, 
for  she  reflected  that  even  fools  have  their 
vanity." 

The  passages  are  instructive ;  for  the  emotion 
and  the  psychology  discovered  in  them  were  not 
wholly  derived  from  books.  Dates  settle  that. 
The  story,  though  not  printed  until  1795,  was 
written  in  1 786 — in  the  year,  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
author's  own  marriage.  It  seems  wrong  to  say, 
therefore,  with  Madame  Necker  de  Saussure  and 
Dr.  Stevens,  that  "the  chief  importance  of  the 
little  volume  is  in  its  introduction,  which  is  a 
critical  essay  of  remarkable  ability  on  Fictitious 
Literature,  written  at  a  later  date."  Its  import- 
ance is  as  a  bitter  cry,  uttered  either  on  the  eve 
or  on  the  morrow  of  a  wedding,  and  a  piece  of 
evidence,  strangely  overlooked,  determining  for 
us  the   frame  of  mind   in  which   Mademoiselle 

37 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Necker  entered  upon  her  union  with  the  Baron 
de  Stael- Holstein.  It  is  useless,  after  reading  it, 
any  longer  to  profess  ignorance  of  her  sentiments. 
The  proof  of  them  is  there,  and  we  have  no  need 
of  any  further  witness.  The  bride  who,  not 
being  a  professional  writer  of  fiction,  wrote  like 
that,  was  pouring  out  her  soul  upon  the  paper, 
and  telling  her  secret  to  future  generations.  She 
was  in  love,  indeed,  but  not  with  the  Baron  de 
Stael- Holstein. 

The  man  whom  she  loved  was  General  Guibert, 
— a  handsome,  plausible  soldier,  with  literary  as 
well  as  military  talents, — best  known  to  the  world 
as  the  suitor  who  seduced  the  affections  of 
d'Alembert's  mistress.  Mademoiselle  Lespinasse, 
and  then  deserted  her  and  broke  her  heart.  She 
admitted  as  much  to  Miss  Burney  at  Mickle- 
ham  ;  and  there  is  corroborative  evidence  in  that 
Eloge  of  General  Guibert,  written  by  her  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  in  1790,  locked  up  in  her 
desk  for  the  remainder  of  her  life,  and  published 
posthumously  by  her  son. 

He  must  have  been  a  worthless,  albeit  in  his 
way  a  dazzling,  man.  His  treatment  of  Made- 
moiselle Lespinasse  was  heartless,  and  worse.  He 
refused  to  return  her  letters  when  she  asked  for 
them ;  he  left  them  lying  about  for  all  the  world 
to  see ;  when  he  did,  under  pressure,  return  some 
of  them,  letters  from  other  ladies  were  carelessly 
included  in  the  parcel.  But  Madame  de  Stael 
was  not  to  know  anything  about  that.     She  only 

38 


Panegyric  on  Guibert 

knew  that  she  had  felt  the  fascination ;  so  that 
the  Eloge,  in  form  a  panegyric  such  as  might 
have  been  pronounced  in  a  solemn  session  of  the 
Academy  of  Letters,  was  in  essence  a  lamentation 
to  which  it  might  indeed  have  been  embarrassing 
for  the  wife  of  the  Swedish  Ambassador  publicly 
to  subscribe  her  name. 

"  Ah,  who,"  she  cries,  **  will  give  me  back  those 
long  talks,  so  rich  in  imagination  and  ideas  ?  It 
was  not  by  weeping  with  you  that  he  consoled 
you  for  your  troubles,  but  no  one  did  more  to 
soften  your  sorrows,  and  to  help  you  to  bear 
the  weight  of  your  reflections,  by  teaching  you 
to  look  at  them  in  all  their  aspects.  He  was 
not  a  friend  for  every  moment,  or  for  every 
day.  His  thoughts,  and  perhaps  his  personality, 
distracted  his  attention  from  other  people.  But, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  great  services  which  he 
would  render  you — services  of  which  too  many 
profess  themselves  capable,  and  for  which  you 
could  always  depend  upon  M.  de  Guibert — his 
whole  soul,  when  he  spoke  to  you,  seemed  to  be 
yours." 

That  is  the  writing  of  a  woman  who  has  loved 
the  man  of  whom  she  writes — whose  emotion  has 
thrown  even  her  sentences  into  confusion ;  and 
there  is  also  evidence  of  a  kind  of  the  warmth 
of  Guibert's  own  feelings.  Madame  de  Stael, 
in  this  same  Bloge,  speaks  of  his  "profound 
admiration  for  my  father."  He  had  no  such 
admiration  for  the  father,  but  affected  it  for  the 

39 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

daughter's    sake.       His    real    sentiments    about 
Necker     are     recorded    in     his     own    journal  : 
**  Received  from  Paris  the  reply  to  M.  Necker's 
book.     I  was  thoroughly  satisfied  with  it.     The 
author  proves  to  demonstration  the  contradictions 
into  which  M.  Necker  has  fallen,  and  the  entire 
failure  of  his  arguments  to  lead  to  any  conclusion." 
There  could  be  no  question  here  of  marriage, 
however,  since  General    Guibert   already  had   a 
wife — the   lady  who   took   such    interest,  not  to 
say  such  pride,  in  his  extra-conjugal  amours  that 
she  actually  published  the  letters  which  he  had 
refused   to   return  to    Mademoiselle    Lespinasse. 
The    Neckers,  moreover,  were    Protestants,  and 
a  Protestant  husband  had  therefore  to  be  sought, 
and  was  not  easily  to  be  found  in   Paris.     The 
story  of  the   attempt   to  arrange  a  match  with 
William  Pitt  is  well  known,  though  Pitt's  alleged 
reply   that    he    was    "already    married    to    his 
country"    rests    upon    very    dubious    authority. 
The  name   of  the   Swedish   Count    Fersen  was 
also  suggested,  though   the   Neckers  can  hardly 
have   been    ignorant    of    the   scandalous   report 
which  represented  him  as  the   lover   of   Marie- 
Antoinette.     In  fact,  all  the  negotiations  for  the 
disposal  of  the  hand  of  the  great  heiress  were 
conducted  to  their  conclusion  in   favour  of  the 
Baron  de  Stael- Holstein  with  a  slow  deliberation 
which  can  fairly  be  called  cold-blooded. 

The   bridegroom   frankly   wanted   the   dowry. 
Practically  nothing  but  the  desire  for  the  dowry 

40 


Match-Makers  at  Work 

appears  in  the  correspondence — it  contains  no 
single  reference  to  any  other  of  the  attractions 
which  the  bride  possessed.  The  Baron  de  Stael- 
Holstein  "  played  up  to "  the  dowry  for  seven 
years  —  from  1779,  when  Mademoiselle  Necker 
was  only  thirteen,  and  when  the  Ambassador  at 
that  date  representing  Sweden  reported  to  Stock- 
holm that  he  was  "in  a  pitiful  condition,  at  the 
end  of  his  resources,  and  without  a  penny  in 
his  pocket."  The  mutual  friend  through  whom 
he  approached  the  Neckers  was  Madame  de 
Boufflers,^  who  did  not  like  Mademoiselle  Necker, 
but  did  like  M.  de  Stael,  thought  that  the  heiress 
would  be  a  "catch"  for  him,  and  was  anxious 
to  do  him  a  good  turn.  Necker,  on  his  part, 
appears  in  the  transaction  as  showing  equally 
little  regard  for  the  inclinations  of  his  daughter, 
but  lays  down  hard  conditions,  like  a  king 
arranging  the  marriage  of  a  princess.  If  His 
Swedish  Majesty  will  assure  M.  de  Stael  the 
Swedish  Embassy  in  perpetuity,  and  will  make 
him  a  Count,  and  will  bestow  upon  him  the  Order 
of  the  Polar  Star,  etc.  etc.  etc.,  then  he  will  give 
his  consent  to  the  union.     And  if  not,  not. 

So  the  thing  drags  on.  The  proposal  is  the 
subject  of  interminable  letters — most  of  them  of 
a  painfully  sordid  character.  At  times  M.  de 
Stael  is  in  despair.  He  does  not  know  how  to 
keep  the  wolf  from  the  door  through  all  these 
long  delays.  "  The  hopes,"  he  writes  to  Gustavus, 
^  Wife  of  the  Governor  of  Senegal. 
41 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

**  which  your  Majesty  permitted  me  to  form  have 
vanished  Hke  a  cloud  of  smoke.  I  am  in  terrible 
embarrassment,  and  I  do  not  know  how  to  save 
myself  from  the  precipice  unless  your  Majesty 
deigns,"  etc.  etc.;  and  Madame  de  Boufflers 
writes  on  his  behalf  that  he  has,  on  the  strength 
of  his  expectations,  incurred  debts  to  the  extent 
of  200,000  francs.  Necker,  however,  remains 
obdurate,  and  insists  on  his  conditions,  and  at 
last  Gustavus  is  willing  to  treat  him  as  a  rival 
potentate,  and  to  make  terms  with  him.  Every- 
thing was  arranged  over  Mademoiselle  Necker's 
head.  She  was  quite  unquestionably  sacrificed 
on  the  altar  of  her  father's  ambition,  though  her 
devotion  to  him  blinded  her,  at  least  partially, 
to  the  fact.  The  marriage  was  celebrated  on 
January  14,  1786.  To  see  how  it  was  regarded 
by  those  who  had  brought  it  about — or  at  all 
events  by  the  bridegroom's  friends — we  have 
only  to  turn  to  a  letter  which  Madame  de 
Boufflers  wrote  to  the  King  of  Sweden  almost 
immediately  after  the  event. 

"I  hope,"  she  says,  "that  M.  de  Stael  will  be 
happy,  but  I  do  not  expect  it.  His  wife,  it  is 
true,  has  been  brought  up  in  honourable  and 
virtuous  principles,  but  she  has  no  experience 
of  the  world  and  no  knowledge  of  the  con- 
venances, and  is  so  spoiled  and  so  opinionated 
that  it  will  be  difficult  to  make  her  perceive  her 
deficiencies.  She  is  much  too  imperious  and  self- 
willed.     I  have  never,  in  any  position  in  society, 

42 


Madame  de  Boufflers'  Cynicism 

seen  such  self-assurance  in  a  woman  of  her  age. 
She  argues  about  everything,  and,  clever  though 
she  is,  one  could  count  twenty  lapses  from  good 
form  for  one  good  thing  that  she  says.  The 
Ambassador  dares  not  speak  to  her  about  it  for 
fear  of  alienating  her  in  the  early  days  of  his 
married  life.  For  my  own  part,  I  exhort  him 
to  begin  by  being  firm  with  her,  for  I  know 
that  the  whole  course  of  a  married  life  is  often 
determined  by  the  beginning  that  a  man  makes. 
For  the  rest,  her  father's  friends  praise  her  to  the 
skies,  his  enemies  find  her  ridiculous  in  a  thousand 
ways,  while  those  who  are  impartial  in  the  matter 
render  justice  to  her  intelligence,  but  complain 
that  she  talks  too  much  and  is  more  brilliant 
than  sensible  or  tactful.  If  she  were  not  so 
spoiled  by  the  incense  burnt  in  her  honour,  I 
should  try  to  give  her  a  little  advice." 

This,  from  the  chief  contriver  of  the  marriage, 
is  cynicism  open  and  unabashed.  From 
Necker  there  naturally  is  no  such  avowal.  He 
probably  confused  his  daughter's  interests  with 
his  own,  being  that  sort  of  self-centred  but  well- 
meaning  man,  and  of  an  age  to  regard  grandeur 
as  a  more  tangible  thing  than  love.  Of  the 
bride's  view  of  the  transaction  we  have  had  our 
glimpse  in  our  extract  from  her  short  story ;  and 
the  same  document  reads  very  like  a  declaration 
of  her  plans  for  dealing  with  the  situation.  She 
would  seek  distraction ;  she  would  live  her  own 
life.  But  she  would  remember  that  fools  have 
their  vanity,  and  would  be  kind. 

43 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

That,  at  any  rate,  whether  as  the  result  of 
deliberate  intention  or  of  accident  and  circum- 
stance, was  pretty  much  how  things  fell  out. 
Madame  de  Stael  was  kind  to  her  husband, 
perhaps,  even  to  the  point  of  helping  him  to 
write  his  despatches.  But  the  seeds  of  estrange- 
ment were  already  sown,  and  were  soon  to 
germinate.  The  marriage  failed ;  and  though 
there  exists  nowhere  any  full  record  of  the 
failure,  we  can  see  how  complete  it  was  from 
an  occasional  passage  alike  in  Madame  de 
Stael's  letters  and  in  her  published  writings. 
"  For  you,"  she  writes  to  Rosalie  de  Constant, 
whom  we  shall  meet  again, — "  for  you  who  have 
neither  a  husband  to  fear  nor  children  to  look 
after  there  remains  a  future " ;  and  in  one  of 
her  earliest  essays,  De  V Influence  des  Passions 
sur  le  Bonheur  des  Individus  et  des  Nations,  there 
is  a  strikingly  sad  comment  on  the  marriage  tie. 

"  It  is  the  tie  of  all  others  in  which  it  is  least 
possible  to  obtain  the  romantic  happiness  of  the 
heart.  To  keep  the  peace  in  this  relationship 
it  is  necessary  to  exercise  a  self-control  and 
to  make  sacrifices  which  cause  this  kind  of 
existence  to  approximate  much  more  nearly  to 
the  pleasures  of  virtue  than  to  the  joys  of 
passion." 

This  is  a  confession,  if  an  informal  one,  meant 
only  for  those  who  could  read  between  the  lines  ; 
and  it  would  be  an  idle  enterprise  to  attempt  too 

44 


"Robbed  of  her  Future" 

carefully  to  apportion  praise  and  blame.  All 
that  one  can  profitably  say  is  this  :  that  M.  de 
Stael  was  a  wooden-headed  man  and  a  gambler, 
who  had  married  for  money,  and  for  no  other 
reason ;  and  that,  when  such  a  man  marries  a 
young  woman  who  is  both  brilliant  and  fascinating 
— even  if  she  be  not  beautiful — the  first  steps  on 
the  road  that  leads  to  disaster  have  been  taken, 
and  the  wife  must  be  judged  at  least  as  leniently 
as  the  husband,  when  the  hour  of  the  catastrophe 
arrives. 

Let  us,  then,  apply  that  rule.  The  proximate 
causes  of  the  dissension  between  Monsieur  and 
Madame  de  Stael  will  then  seem  to  matter  little, 
while  its  ultimate  causes  will  be  clear.  We  have 
only  to  turn  back  to  the  story  of  Adelaide  et 
Theodore  to  find  them  foreshadowed.  There  we 
have  read  the  lamentation  of  the  girl  who  was 
**  robbed  of  her  future  "  by  her  marriage.  Now, 
at  a  later  stage,  we  see  the  girl  trying  to 
win  back  what  she  has  lost,  resolved  to  dream 
her  romantic  dream,  whoever  says  her  nay, 
denying  the  right  of  parent  or  husband  or  priest 
to  slam  the  door  on  sentiment  for  ever,  asserting 
her  claim  to  live  her  life  and  to  find  happiness 
where  she  can — claiming  especially  to  find  happi- 
ness in  love,  since  love  always  appears  to  her  as 
the  highest  manifestation  of  virtue,  even  when 
she  must  trample  on  the  world's  conventions  to 
attain  it. 


45 


CHAPTER  V 

Necker  recalled  to  office — Dismissed — Recalled  again  after  the 
fall  of  the  Bastille — Fails — Resigns  —  Retires  to  Coppet — 
Madame  de  Stael's  essay  on  the  works  of  Rousseau — Infer- 
ences that  can  be  drawn  from  it — Madame  de  Stael's  salon — 
Description  of  it  by  Gouverneur  Morris — Progress  of  the 
Revolution — Madame  de  Stael  saves  her  friends,  and  then 
leaves  Paris. 

We  shall  see  how  Madame  de  Stael  lived  her 
life  during  the  years  of  the  Revolution,  already,  at 
the  time  of  her  marriage,  almost  in  sight ;  but  we 
must  first  see  how  her  father  lived  his. 

We  left  Necker  out  of  office,  and  he  was  to 
remain  out  of  office  for  some  time  longer ;  but 
his  successors  were  making  a  sad  mess  of  the 
national  finances,  and  his  recall  to  cope  with 
the  emergency  became  more  and  more  obviously 
inevitable.  Calonne  was  a  failure,  and  had  to  go. 
There  followed  in  succession  M.  de  Fourqueux 
and  M.  de  Villedeuil,  giving  place  in  their  turn  to 
Lom^nie  de  Brienne,  Archbishop  of  Toulouse, 
afterwards  Archbishop  of  Sens.  He  lasted  for 
eighteen  months,  and  then  the  King  sent  for 
Necker.  The  populace  cheered  him,  and  burnt 
the  Archbishop  in  effigy ;  and  the  funds  rose 
thirty  per  cent,  in  a  single  day.  That  was  in 
August  1788.      The   assembling   of  the  States- 

46 


Necker  is  Recalled,  but  Fails 

General  followed,  and  Necker  supposed  himself 
to  have  succeeded  as  the  people's  Minister.  "  As 
Malebranche  saw  all  things  in  God,"  said  the  wit, 
"  so  M.  Necker  sees  all  things  in  Necker."  There 
was  a  day  when  the  people  shouted  for  him,  and 
carried  him  home  in  triumph.  His  enemies  then 
intrigued  against  him,  and  the  King  dismissed 
him,  bidding  him  leave  Paris  quietly  to  avoid 
disturbances.  He  did  so,  and  the  reply  of  the 
people  was  to  burn  the  Bastille.  The  King 
accepted  the  intimation,  and  recalled  him.  The 
couriers  despatched  in  haste  overtook  him  at 
Basle,  and  he  drove  back  hailed  as  the  saviour 
of  France. 

That  was  in  August  1789  ;  and  it  was  already 
too  late  for  France  to  be  saved  otherwise  than  by 
fire  and  sword.  The  emigration  had  begun,  and 
the  tide  of  Sans-culottism,  presently  to  become 
Terrorism,  was  flowing.  In  October  came  the 
march  of  the  women  to  Versailles  and  the  bringing 
of  the  King  and  Queen  to  Paris.  Necker  could 
not  control  a  mob  that  did  things  of  that  sort,  nor 
could  he  or  any  man  straighten  out  the  finances 
of  a  country  in  which  such  things  happened. 
For  that  achievement  credit  was  needed,  and 
revolutionary  France  had  none ;  and,  as  Necker 
could  not  work  miracles,  he  found  his  popularity 
on  the  wane.  Only  a  little  while  since,  the 
question  had  been  when  he  would  be  sent  for ; 
now  the  question  was  when  he  would  be  dismissed. 
He  did  not  wait  to  be  dismissed,  but  retired,  and 

47 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

had  trouble  in  getting  away.  At  Arcis-sur-Aube 
his  carriage  was  stopped,  and  he  had  to  appeal 
to  the  National  Assembly  to  give  special  orders 
that  he  should  be  suffered  to  depart  in  peace. 
So  he  went  into  exile  at  Coppet,  where  he  wrote 
pamphlets  in  vindication  of  his  policy,  and  where 
he  presently  felt  himself  insecure.  Fearing  a 
raid  and  an  attempt  to  kidnap  him,  he  appealed 
to  the  Bernese  Government  for  permission  to 
maintain  at  Coppet  a  guard  of  fifty  armed  men 
at  his  own  cost.  ■  The  permission,  for  whatever 
reason,  was  refused,  and  he  went  to  live  at 
Rolle  —  probably  in  the  country  house  of  his 
brother,  Louis  Necker  de  Germany,  on  the 
outskirts  of  that  town  —  until  times  should  be 
quieter. 

Outwardly,  during  that  period,  Madame  de 
Stael's  life  was  much  wrapped  up  in  her  father's 
— certainly  far  more  in  his  than  in  her  husband's. 
She  was  with  Necker  when  he  drove  to  Ver- 
sailles to  resume  office  in  August  1788,  and  on 
the  day  of  the  meeting  of  the  States-General  in 
May  1789,  when  Madame  de  Montmorin  pre- 
dicted to  her  "  frightful  disasters  to  France  and 
to  us."^  She  followed  him  to  Brussels,  when  the 
King  bade  him  leave  France,  in  July  of  the  same 
year ;  and  she  came  back  with  him  when  he  was 
recalled  and  conducted  in  triumph  to  the  Hotel 

^  The  prophecy  in  her  case  was  fulfilled.  Her  husband  perished 
in  the  September  massacres.  She  and  one  of  her  sons  were 
guillotined. 

48 


Literary  Career  Begins  ' 

de  Ville,  with  beating  drums  and  blaring  bands 
and  the  waving  of  flags  captured  at  the  storming 
of  the  Bastille.  She  hurried  to  him  at  Versailles, 
by  a  circuitous  route,  on  the  day  on  which 
Th^roigne  de  M^ricourt  led  the  women  of  Paris 
to  the  Palace.  She  hastened  to  visit  him  at 
Coppet  in  September  1790.  Of  her  relations 
with  M.  de  Stael  at  the  time  we  know  next  to 
nothing,  except  that  she  bore  him  a  son  four  and 
a  half  years  after  her  marriage.  Perhaps  we  may 
infer  something  from  the  fact  that  he  is  almost 
the  only  one  of  her  intimate  male  acquaintances 
to  whom  her  correspondence  contains  no  affec- 
tionate reference.  In  her  most  intimate  letters  he 
is  always  "  M.  de  Stael  " — there  is  no  departure 
from  that  formal  style.  Evidently  they  began 
early  to  go  their  separate  ways :  ^  he  losing  his 
money — or  rather  her  money — at  the  card-table, 
and  she  dazzling  the  salons  by  her  talk. 

It  was  in  these  years,  however, — the  years  of 
the  calm  that  preceded  the  revolutionary  storm, — 
that  her  literary  career  began.  An  edition  of 
twenty  copies  of  her  Lettres  sur  les  Ecrits  et  le 
Caractere  dej.  J.  Rousseau  was  published  in  1788. 
"  By  this  accident,"  she  wrote  in  a  "  Second 
Preface,"  in  18 14,  "I  was  drawn  into  the  literary 
career " ;  and  she  proceeded  to  speak  of  the 
consolations   which    she    had    derived    from    the 

^  M.  de  Stael  had  a  natural  son,  and  also  appears  to  have  been 
on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  actress  Mile  Clairon,  but  not  much 
is  known  on  this  branch  of  the  subject. 
D  49 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

pursuit  of  it  throughout  the  course  of  an  unhappy- 
life.  From  the  first  she  wrote  as  one  who  enjoyed 
writing — who  wrote  because  her  thoughts  were 
secrets  that  she  could  not  keep.  That  is  why 
what  she  wrote  is  nearly  always  interesting 
though  not  often  valuable.  This  particular  essay, 
indeed,  has  little  literary  or  critical  importance. 
It  takes  no  broad  views,  and  has  much  of  the 
stiffness  of  a  scholastic  exercise.  But  the  person- 
ality of  the  writer  flashes  out  in  it  now  and  again. 
The  biographer,  reading  between  the  lines  of  it, 
can  see  of  what  Madame  de  Stael  was  thinking 
as  a  young  married  woman  of  two-and-twenty. 

Especially  are  her  thoughts  disclosed  in  the 
chapter  on  "La  nouvelle  H^loise."  She  evidently 
saw  in  the  case  of  Madame  de  Wolmar  an 
anticipation  of  her  own.  She  seems  to  be  telling 
us  by  implication  how  her  own  marriage  has  been 
brought  about.  Some  may  think,  she  says,  that 
Madame  de  Wolmar,  as  she  did  not  love  her 
husband,  should  not  have  married  him ;  but — 

"How  miserable  the  girl  who  imagines  that 
she  has  the  courage  to  resist  her  father!  His 
right,  his  wishes  may  be  forgotten  when  he  is 
far  away — the  passion  of  the  moment  effaces 
all  recollections.  But  a  father  on  his  knees, 
pleading  his  own  cause!  His  power  increased 
by  his  voluntary  dependence  on  her  will!  His 
unhappiness  in  conflict  with  her  own!  His 
entreaties  when  she  expected  him  to  compel ! 
What  a    spectacle   is   that!      It   suspends   love 

50 


Significant  Passages 

itself.  A  father  who  speaks  like  a  friend,  who 
appeals  at  once  to  nature  and  the  heart,  is  the 
sovereign  of  our  souls,  and  can  obtain  whatever 
he  desires  from  us." 

Here  clearly  we  have  something  more  than 
the  critical  reflections  of  a  reviewer ;  and  there 
presently  follows  a  passage  not  less  personal  and 
significant  on  the  unhappiness  of  the  lot  of  women 
thus  obliged  to  marry  without  love. 

"  They  need  much  strength  of  mind.  Their 
passions  and  their  destiny  are  in  conflict  in  a 
country  where  fortune  often  imposes  upon  women 
the  obligation  never  to  love,  and  where,  more  to 
be  pitied  than  those  pious  women  who  consecrate 
themselves  to  their  God,  they  have  to  accord  all 
the  rights  of  passion  and  deny  themselves  all 
the  pleasures  of  sentiment.  Must  they  not 
have  a  very  strong  sense  of  duty  if  they  are  to 
walk  alone  in  the  world,  and  to  die  without 
ever  having  been  first  in  the  thoughts  of  some 
other  being,  and,  above  all,  without  ever  having 
fastened  their  own  affections  upon  an  object 
which  they  can  love  without  remorse  ?  " 

There  again,  we  may  be  sure,  the  writer  is 
according  us  a  glimpse  at  the  secrets  of  her 
soul ;  while  a  third  passage,  not  less  significant 
to  the  biographer,  is  that  in  which  Madame  de 
Stael  pities  Rousseau's  heroine  because  she  lives 
in  the  quiet  country,  and  not  in  "  this  whirlwind 
of  the  world  which  can  make  one  forget  one's 
husband  and  one's  lover  both."     That  outburst, 

51 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

at  any  rate,  hardly  arose  out  of  the  subject  under 
discussion,  and  can  only  be  read  as  a  confession 
wrung  from  the  writer's  heart.  Did  M.  de 
Stael,  one  wonders,  ever  read  this  first  book  of 
his  wife's?  If  he  read  it,  did  he  understand? 
If  he  understood,  did  he  care  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  say,  though  one  pictures 
him  as  too  dense  a  man  to  understand  that  sort 
of  thing  unless  the  explanation,  with  all  the  dots 
on  all  the  i's,  were  actually  thrust  under  his 
nose.  But  there  can  be  little  question  that  his 
wife  was  thinking  a  good  deal  more  of  herself 
than  of  Madame  de  Wolmar  when  she  wrote 
the  phrase  about  "the  whirlwind  of  the  world." 
She  was  caught  up  in  the  eddies  of  that  whirl- 
wind from  the  first — a  whirlwind  that  was  both 
political  and  social,  and  that  whirled  faster  and 
more  furiously  as  the  years  went  by,  and  one 
revolutionary  force  after  another  was  unloosed. 
The  life  of  excitement  certainly  helped  her  to 
forget  her  husband.  As  for  her  lover — or  lovers 
— that  is  a  different  matter.  Guibert,  indeed,  as 
it  would  seem,  lost  ground  in  her  thoughts ;  her 
early  attachment  to  him  declining  into  a  senti- 
mental memory.  But  there  were  others.  There 
exists  a  letter  in  which  she  wrote  to  M.  de 
Gdrando :  "  The  three  men  whom  I  loved  best 
after  I  was  nineteen  or  twenty"  —  after  her 
marriage,  that  is  to  say — "were  N.,  T.,  and  M."; 
and  the  names  for  which  these  initials  stand  are 
those  of  M.   de   Narbonne,   M.    de   Talleyrand, 

52 


Position  in  Society 

and  Mathieu  de  Montmorency.  We  shall  see 
presently  what  services  she  rendered  to  each  of 
them ;  but  first  we  must  see  what  was  her 
position,  at  this  period,  in  Parisian  Society. 

It  was  a  position  which  she  had,  at  first,  to 
fight  for.  She  was  not,  as  the  Germans  would 
say,  "born."  She  had  something  less  than  the 
manners  of  a  grande  dame.  There  were 
those  among  the  old  noblesse  who  wished  to 
make  her  feel  her  deficiencies.  One  gathers 
that,  and  also,  at  the  same  time,  gathers  some 
indication  of  the  matters  at  issue  between  Madame 
de  Stael  and  her  husband,  from  the  account  of 
her  presentation  at  Court  given  in  the  Memoirs 
of  Madame  d'Oberkirch. 

"  She  has  had  little  success,"  we  read.  **  All 
the  men  found  her  ugly,  awkward,  and,  above 
all,  artificial.  She  did  not  know  how  to  behave, 
and  felt  very  much  out  of  her  element  in  the 
midst  of  the  elegance  of  Versailles.  M.  de  Stael, 
on  the  contrary,  is  exceedingly  handsome,  and 
the  best  of  company.  His  manners  are  very 
distinguished,  and  he  did  not  appear  to  be  very 
proud  of  his  wife.  .  .  .  The  Genevan  appeared 
underneath  the  woman  of  talent,  and — especially 
— underneath  the  Ambassadress." 

That  was  the  view  of  the  Opposition,  as 
expressed  by  its  most  spiteful  representative. 
Madame  de  Stael  conquered  her  place  in  Society 
in  spite  of  it,  partly  by  her  force  of  character 
and  her   brilliant    conversation  —  partly  because 

53 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

her  salon  was  on  the  winning  side,  and  she  was 
in  a  position  to  be  useful  to  her  friends — partly 
also  because,  as  the  Revolution  ran  its  course,  the 
beginning  of  the  emigration  removed  her  social 
rivals.  From  1788  onwards,  therefore,  her  salon 
became  more  and  more  the  centre  alike  of  social 
life  and  of  political  intrigue. 

It  was  an  exciting,  but  not  the  less  a  gay  and 
festive  time.  The  Terror  was  not  yet  in  sight. 
The  King  had  not  yet  been  deposed  and 
degraded  to  the  style  of  Citizen  Louis  Capet. 
Members  of  the  old  families  were  still  governing 
the  country  in  his  name.  The  conditions  were 
not  to  be  of  long  duration,  but  while  they  lasted 
Madame  de  Stael  was  able  to  help  her  friends. 
She  helped  Talleyrand  by  writing  a  State  paper 
which  he  signed.  She  helped  M.  de  Narbonne 
by  procuring  him  the  office  of  Minister  of  War. 
Then,  as  always,  her  notion  of  friendship  was 
to  pull  wires  for  her  friends'  advantage  —  not 
quietly  and  unobtrusively,  but  openly  and 
ostentatiously,  as  if  she  were  pealing  the  tocsin. 
We  have  a  choice  of  memoirs  from  which  to 
draw  ourselves  the  picture.  Perhaps  we  shall  see 
it  best  through  the  impartial  eyes  of  Gouverneur 
Morris,  the  American  Minister,  who  had  no 
spite  to  vent,  but  only  a  curiosity  to  gratify,  and 
who  saw  what  there  was  to  be  seen  from  the 
detached  point  of  view  of  a  stranger. 

Morris  landed  in  France  in  January  1789.  In 
March  we  find  him  dining  with  M.   Necker,  who 

54 


The  First  Salon  of  Paris 

"  has  the  look  and  manner  of  the  counting-house," 
and  there  making  the  acquaintance  of  Madame 
de  Stael,  who  "seems  to  be  a  woman  of  sense 
and  somewhat  masculine  in  her  character,  but 
has  very  much  the  appearance  of  a  chamber- 
maid." It  is  not  until  September  —  after  the 
fall  of  the  Bastille,  and  Necker's  banishment  and 
dramatic  recall — that  the  acquaintance  develops. 
Madame  de  Stael  draws  Morris  out ;  and  he 
fancies  that  she  is  inspecting  him  "with  that 
look  which,  without  being  what  Sir  John  Falstaff 
calls  the  *leer  of  invitation,'  amounts  to  the  same 
thing."  That,  however,  one  imagines,  was  only 
his  vanity,  and  he  admits  that  he  was  given  no 
opportunity  of  demonstrating  "what  can  be 
effected  by  the  native  of  the  New  World  who 
has  left  one  of  his  legs  behind."  Their  relations 
continue  to  be  friendly ;  and  his  accounts  of  the 
receptions  at  her  salon  are  frequent  and  graphic. 
For  instance  : — 

"  Quite  the  first  salon  of  Paris  at  this  time  was 
that  over  which  Madame  de  Stael  presided.  Her 
regular  Tuesday  evening  supper,  when  not  more 
than  a  dozen  or  fifteen  covers  were  laid  and  her 
chosen  friends  were  admitted  into  the  little  salon, 
the  chambre  ardente,  was  the  great  feature  of  the 
week.  Here,  the  candles  extinguished  to  heighten 
the  effect,  the  Abb^  Delille  declaimed  his  '  Cata- 
combs de  Rome,'  and  here  Clermont-Tonnerre 
submitted  to  the  criticism  of  his  friends  his  dis- 
course before  delivering  it  in   public.     Near  the 

55 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

chimney  Necker  stood,  entertaining  the  Bishop 
of  Autun,  who  smiled  but  avoided  talking.  Here 
was  to  be  found  the  Duchesse  de  Lauzun,  of  all 
women  the  most  gentle  and  timid ;  and  in  the 
midst  stood  the  hostess,  in  her  favourite  attitude 
before  the  fire,  with  her  hands  behind  her  back, 
a  large,  leonine  woman,  with  few  beauties  and 
no  grace  of  gesture.  She  nevertheless  animated 
the  salon  by  her  masculine  attitude  and  powerful 
conversation.  De  Narbonne  is  of  course  with 
Madame  de  Stael  this  evening." 

Generally  the  conversation  is  of  politics,  but 
sometimes  it  is  of  literature.  As  late  as  April 
1 79 1,  when  the  times  were  really  beginning  to 
be  revolutionary,  Morris  hears  Madame  de  Stael 
read  the  assemblage  her  tragedy  Montmorenci, 
and  remarks  that  "she  writes  much  better  than 
she  reads."  Over  and  over  again  we  find  her 
name  coupled  with  that  of  M.  de  Narbonne  ;  over 
and  over  again  he  is  described  as  "her  lover 
en  litre" — once  in  a  despatch  to  Washington 
in  which  we  get  a  glimpse  of  an  interesting 
jealousy. 

"In  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  he  [M. 
de  Narbonne],  great  anti-Neckerist  though  the 
lover  en  titre  of  Madame  de  Stael,  M.  Necker's 
daughter,  was  not  a  little  opposed  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  there  was  afterwards  some  coldness 
between  him  and  the  Bishop  [Talleyrand],  partly 
on  political  accounts,  and  partly  because  he  (in 
common  with  the  rest  of  the  world)  believed  the 
Bishop  to  be  too  well  with  his  mistress.     By  the 

56 


Reminiscence  of  a  Dinner  Party 

bye,  she  tells  me  that  it  is  not  true,  and  of  course 
I,  who  am  a  charitable  man,  believe  her." 

The  subject,  however,  was  not  one  to  be 
discussed  only  behind  Madame  de  Stael's  back. 
It  could  be  referred  to  in  conversation  both  with 
herself  and  with  her  husband.  So  much  we 
gather  from  a  reminiscence  of  a  dinner  party  at 
Necker's  house — a  reminiscence  the  more  interest- 
ing because  it  gives  us  one  of  our  rare  glimpses 
of  M.  de  Stael's  view  of  a  situation  not  particularly 
flattering  to  his  amour-propre.     First  it  is  : — 

"  I  go  to-day  to  dine  at  M.  Necker's,  and  place 
myself  next  to  Madame  de  Stael,  and  as  our 
conversation  grows  animated,  she  desires  me 
to  speak  English,  which  her  husband  does  not 
understand.  Afterwards,  in  looking  round  the 
table,  I  observe  in  him  much  emotion.  I  tell 
her  that  he  loves  her  distractedly,  which  she  says 
she  knows,  and  that  it  renders  her  miserable. 
Condole  with  her  a  little  on  her  widowhood, 
the  Chevalier  de  Narbonne  being  absent  in 
Franche-Comt6. " 

And  then : — 

"  After  dinner  I  seek  a  conversation  with  the 
husband,  which  relieves  him.  He  inveighs 
bitterly  against  the  manners  of  this  country,  and 
the  cruelty  of  alienating  a  wife's  affections.  He 
says  that  women  here  are  more  corrupt  in  their 
minds  and  hearts  than  in  any  other  way.  I 
regret  with  him  on  general  grounds  that  pro- 
stration  of  morals   which   unfits   them  for  good 

57 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

government.  Hence  he  concludes,  and  I  believe 
truly,  that  I  shall  not  contribute  towards  making 
him  uncomfortable." 

Whence  it  would  appear  that  M.  de  Stael, 
having  married  a  woman  of  genius  for  her  money, 
had  already  begun  to  realise  the  price  that  he 
must  pay.  He  made  no  clamorous  public  pro- 
tests— that  was  hardly  the  fashion  of  the  time. 
He  did  not  even  meet  scandal  with  scandal  to 
any  great  extent,  but  accepted  the  inevitable,  and 
effaced  himself  for  fear  of  ridicule.  One  con- 
jectures that  his  vanity  was  more  deeply  wounded 
than  his  affections,  and  that  he  found  more  con- 
solation at  the  card-table  than  he  admitted. 

Meanwhile,  however,  the  Revolution  was  pro- 
gressing with  giant  strides.  The  men  whom 
Madame  de  Stael  had  advanced  by  her  influence 
found  their  heads  in  danger ;  the  most  that  her 
influence  could  now  do  for  them  was  to  save  their 
lives.  It  was  good  to  be  her  friend  in  those  days, 
and  not  necessary  to  be  her  lover  in  order  to 
have  her  help.  Her  courage  was  heroic  and 
her  energy  admirable;  and  if  she  was  proud  of 
her  power  over  the  mob,  she  was  well  entitled 
to  her  pride.  On  the  eve  of  the  September 
massacres,  she,  a  young  matron  of  six-and-twenty, 
forced  her  way  into  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and 
rescued  Lally-Tollendal  and  Jaucourt  from  the 
clutches  of  the  executioners.  Over  M.  de  Nar- 
bonne  she  threw  the  segis  of  ambassadorial  sacro- 
sanctity,  hiding  him  in   her   house,  and   defying 

58 


The  Real  Beginning  of  Exile 

the  mob  to  search  for  him,  until  he  could  be 
got  away  to  London  with  a  false  passport.  Not 
until  that  was  done — not  until  the  September 
massacres  were  in  progress — did  she  apply  for 
her  own  passport  and  make  her  own  retreat. 

There  were  still  difficulties  to  be  overcome. 
The  mob  assailed  her  carriage,  and  would  have 
pillaged  her  luggage,  had  not  Santerre — the 
same  Santerre  whose  drummers  were  to  drown 
the  dying  speech  of  Louis  xvi. — sat  on  the  coach- 
man's box  defending  her.  Tallien,^  however, 
escorted  her  past  the  Paris  barriers ;  and  she 
drove  post  haste,  not  to  her  husband  who  was 
in  Holland,  but  to  join  her  father  and  mother 
at  Rolle.  "  Switzerland  is  in  mourning,"  writes 
Madame  Necker  in  a  letter  dated  September  9. 
"  The  Ambassadress  arrived  the  day  before 
yesterday,  bringing  the  terrible  news  of  the 
2nd,  and  the  story  of  all  her  personal  sufferings." 
This  was  the  real  beginning  of  exile. 

^  He  who  afterwards  helped  to  overthrow  Robespierre. 


59 


CHAPTER  VI 

From  Coppet  to  Mickleham — The  motive  for  the  journey — The 
dmigrh  at  Juniper  Hall — Madame  de  Stael's  friendship  with 
Fanny  Burney — M.  de  Narbonne  "behaves  badly." 

"  Peacefully  sheltered  in  the  chateau  at  Coppet," 
says  Dr.  Stevens,  **  Madame  de  Stael  immediately 
became  its  chatelaine,  the  priestess  of  its  abundant 
hospitalities ; "  but  this  statement  somewhat  anti- 
cipates the  facts. 

The  date  of  Madame  de  Stael's  second  confine- 
ment was  fast^approaching,  and  she  was  in  no  con- 
dition to  dispense  hospitalities.  Nor  did  she  and 
her  family  remain  at  Coppet.  The  chateau,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  not  considered  a  sufficiently  safe 
retreat.  M.  Necker  was  afraid  of  being  kid- 
napped by  raiders  from  over  the  border.  He 
removed  to  Rolle,  and  it  was  there  that  Madame 
de  Stael's  second  son,  Albert  de  Stael,  was  born. 

The  time,  moreover,  was  inappropriate  for  social 
relaxations,  and  the  party  were  in  no  mood  to  enjoy 
them.  Madame  Necker  was  ill — she  was,  in  fact, 
continually  ailing  for  many  years  before  her  death. 
M.  Necker  was  a  depressed  and  practically  a  broken 
man.  Conscious  of  his  position  as  the  pilot  who 
had  failed  to  weather  the  storm — made  the  more 
acutely  conscious  of  it  by  the  demeanour  of  the 

60 


Necker  a  Broken  Man 

French  dmigr^s  who  refused  to  cross  his  threshold 
or  even  to  speak  to  him — he  locked  himself 
up  in  his  room  and  wrote  pamphlets,  vindicating 
his  own  policy,  and  advising  the  French  nation 
about  the  policy  of  his  successors.  Our  most 
graphic  picture  of  his  situation  is  to  be  found  in 
one  of  Gibbon's  letters  to  Lord  Sheffield. 

"  I  passed  four  days  at  the  castle  of  Coppet 
with  Necker ;  and  could  have  wished  to  have 
shown  him  as  a  warning  to  any  aspiring  youth 
possessed  with  the  Daemon  of  ambition.  With  all 
the  means  of  private  happiness  in  his  power,  he 
is  the  most  miserable  of  human  beings  :  the  past, 
the  present,  and  the  future  are  all  equally  odious 
to  him.  When  I  suggested  some  domestic  amuse- 
ments of  books,  building,  etc.,  he  answered  with  a 
deep  tone  of  despair,  *  Dans  I'^tat  ou  je  suis,  je  ne 
puis  sentir  que  le  coup  de  vent  qui  m'a  abattu.' 
How  different  from  the  careless  cheerfulness  with 
which  our  poor  friend  Lord  North  supports  his 
fall !  Madame  Necker  maintains  more  external 
composure,  mais  le  Diable  ny perdrien.  It  is  true 
that  Necker  wished  to  be  carried  into  the  Closet, 
like  old  Pitt,  on  the  shoulders  of  the  people,  and 
that  he  has  been  ruined  by  the  Democracy  which 
he  has  raised." 

That  was  in  1791,  Gibbon  being  at  the  time 
a  resident  of  Lausanne,  reposing  in  tranquillity 
after  the  completion  of  his  history  of  the  Decline 
and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  He  knew, 
therefore,  what  were  the  "means  of  private 
happiness  "  of  which  he  spoke.     They  were  those 

61 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

from  which  he  himself  derived  a  calm  enjoyment 
— the  amenities  of  life  upon  the  shores  of  the 
most  beautiful  lake  in  Europe.  But  there  was 
one  difference  between  his  condition  and  Necker's 
which  he  failed  to  seize.  He  was  transplanted ; 
Necker  was  uprooted.  I  n  a  subsequent  letter,  dated 
April  4,  1792,  Madame  de  Stael's  name  appears. 

"  Madame  de  Stael  is  expected  in  a  few  weeks 
at  Coppet,  where  they  receive  her,  and  where, 
*to  dumb  forgetfulness  a  prey,'  she  will  have 
leisure  to  regret  the  pleasing  anxious  being,  which 
she  enjoyed  amidst  the  storms  of  Paris.  But 
what  can  the  poor  creature  do  ?  her  husband  is 
in  Sweden,  her  lover  is  no  longer  Secretary  of 
War,  and  her  father's  house  is  the  only  place 
where  she  can  reside  with  the  least  degree  of 
prudence  and  decency." 

The  arrival  expected  in  April  was  postponed, 
as  has  been  already  mentioned,  until  September ; 
and  the  stay  was  of  short  duration.  Already,  in 
December,  immediately  after  the  birth  of  her 
child,  she  began  to  talk  about  departing.  Our 
first  intimation  is  in  a  letter  from  Necker  to 
Henri  Meister,  then  in  London. 

"  My  daughter  is  going  to  leave  us  to  pass  a 
few  months,  not  in  London  but  at  a  country 
place  in  England,  where  several  of  her  friends 
are  living  together.  It  is  not  from  you,  sir,  to 
whom  I  am  attached,  and  who  are  attached  to 
us,  that  I  shall  conceal  the  grief  which  this 
journey  causes  us.     I  have  made  every  imagin- 

62 


Motive  of  Journey  to  England 

able  effort  to  prevent  it,  but  in  vain.  .  .  .  We 
must  resign  ourselves  to  what  we  cannot  hinder, 
but  it  is  very  unfortunate  from  every  point  of  view." 

Then  follows  a  letter  from  Madame  Necker 
to  Gibbon,  dated  the  2nd  of  January  1793. 

"  After  having  tried  in  vain  every  device  that 
wit  or  reason  could  suggest  to  divert  my  daughter 
from  so  mad  a  project,  we  thought  that  a  short 
sojourn  at  Geneva  might  make  her  more  amenable 
by  bringing  her  under  the  influence  of  public 
opinion.  She  took  advantage  of  the  liberty 
which  she  thus  obtained  to  start  even  sooner 
than  we  apprehended.  Under  such  sad  auspices 
has  she  begun  her  new  year  and  caused  us  to 
begin  ours.     I  will  say  nothing  more." 

Finally  there  is  a  letter  in  which  Gibbon  hands 
the  news  on  to  Lord  Sheffield,  adding  signifi- 
cantly :  "Her  friend  the  Vicomte  de  Narbonne 
is  somewhere  about  Dorking ; "  and  in  that 
sentence  the  motive  of  the  journey,  undertaken 
at  a  time  when  her  health  was  impaired  and 
travelling  was  dangerous,  and  the  grounds  of  her 
parents'  objection  to  it,  appear  to  be  disclosed. 

Probably  it  was  the  first  occasion  on  which  her 
parents  realised  that  she  was  prepared,  in  the 
matters  of  the  heart,  to  take — and  had  indeed 
already  taken — the  final  compromising  step  which 
her  mother,  warmly  as  she  made  love  on  paper,  had 
never  been  in  any  real  peril  of  taking.  On  paper, 
it  is  true,  Madame  Necker  seems,  when  we  turn 
over  those  of  her  letters  which  M.  d'Haussonville 

63 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

has  published,  to  have  gone  rather  far.  We  are 
brought  to  the  same  conclusion  whether  we  look 
at  the  letters  which  she  wrote  or  at  those  which 
she  received.  "  The  moments  of  your  leisure," 
she  wrote  to  Gibbon,  "  belong  to  her  who  has 
been  your  first  love  and  your  last.  I  cannot  make 
up  my  mind  which  of  these  titles  is  the  sweeter 
and  the  dearer  to  my  heart."  She  kept  a  letter 
from  Marmontel,  in  which  he  threatened  to  swim 
the  Channel  in  order  to  follow  her  to  England  : 
"Why  should  not  friendship  have  her  Leander 
as  well  as  love  ? "  She  kept  a  letter  from  Thomas, 
in  which  he  exclaimed :  "  Your  soul  is  necessary 
to  mine — without  yours  mine  is  wandering ;  it  is 
never  in  its  place  and  is  never  at  rest  but  when 
it  is  beside  you."  The  correspondence  is  full  of 
"words  to  that  effect,"  spoken  to  and  by  a  great 
number  of  correspondents. 

It  all  meant  nothing,  however — nothing  or  very 
little.  The  most  extreme  comment  which  it 
warrants  is  that  Madame  Necker,  when  she 
writes  to  her  friends,  gives  one  the  impression 
of  a  virtuous  woman  presuming  on  her  virtue. 
Her  affections,  in  truth,  were  rather  of  the  head 
than  of  the  heart.  She  spoke  the  language  of 
gallantry  because  it  was  the  language  of  the 
salons — because  to  use  it  seemed  to  be  a  part  of 
the  manners  of  good  society.  She  may  even  be 
said  to  have  used  it  with  a  certain  appearance  of 
affectation,  as  one  who  spoke  a  foreign  tongue, 
acquired  late  in  life. 

64 


Progress  of  the  Revolution 

The  daughter's  case  was  very  different  from 
the  mother's.  She  was,  before  everything  else, 
sincere ;  and  she  was  plain,  and  she  was 
passionate ;  and  she  believed  in  her  indefeasible 
right  to  happiness,  to  be  attained  if  not  through 
marriage,  then  through  love ;  and  she  had,  in  all 
departments  of  life  alike,  the  genius,  the  energy, 
and  the  initiative  of  a  man.  And  she  did  not 
love  her  husband,  and  had  never  loved  him,  and 
did  love  M.  de  Narbonne.  It  was  only  to  be 
expected,  in  her  case,  that  sentiment  would  be 
translated  into  action,  and  that,  if  she  was  not 
pursued,  she  would  pursue.  So  she  rose  from  her 
sick-bed,  and  raced  across  the  Continent  and  the 
Channel  to  her  lover. 

M.  de  Narbonne  was  one  of  a  group  of  imigrSs 
who  had  hung  on  in  France  till  the  last.  The 
extreme  Royalists  had  left  the  country  long  before. 
Some  eighteen  thousand  of  them — the  Army  of 
Coblentz — were  trying,  not  very  successfully,  to 
invade  it  under  foreign  leadership.  The  aristo- 
crats who  were  also  reformers  had  remained  behind, 
hoping  at  first,  and  still  trying  after  they  had 
ceased  to  hope,  to  lead  and  limit  the  Revolution. 
But  the  tide  flowed  too  fast  for  them.  Power 
slipped  from  their  grasp,  and  they  were  as  little  able 
as  Necker  himself  had  been  to  stem  the  current. 
Terrible  things  which  they  could  neither  approve 
nor  resist  began  to  happen.  The  Swiss  Guard 
were  massacred  in  the  Tuileries ;  the  epoch  of 
domiciliary  visits  opened.  They  were  themselves 
E  65 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

suspect,  and  had  to  get  away  as  best  they  could, 
often  narrowly  escaping  arrest.  One  of  them  only 
avoided  detention,  when  his  house  was  searched, 
by  pretending  that  he  was  not  himself,  but  the 
doctor  called  in  to  attend  his  sister-in-law,  who 
had  fainted  in  her  alarm.  Another  was  smuggled 
away  in  a  boat,  concealed  beneath  a  pile  of 
faggots.  How  M.  de  Narbonne  was  saved  by 
Madame  de  Stael  we  have  already  seen. 

Though  repudiated  by  the  Revolutionists,  how- 
ever, this  company  had  no  intention  of  fighting 
their  country  on  their  King's  behalf.  They  only 
sought  to  wait,  in  a  cheerful  security,  for  better 
times.  So  they  came  to  Mickleham  in  Surrey, 
and  took  Juniper  Hall — which,  of  course,  they 
called  Junipere. 

You  see  the  house — you  cannot  help  seeing  it 
— as  you  follow  the  highroad  from  Leatherhead 
to  Dorking.  Originally  an  inn  styled  the  "  Royal 
Oak,"  it  had  been  bought  and  enlarged  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  by  Sir  Cecil 
Bishop,  from  whom  it  had  been  acquired  by  a 
wealthy  lottery-office  keeper  named  Jenkinson, 
who  let  it  to  the  imigrds.  It  is  an  imposing  red 
mansion,  approached  through  a  lodge  gate  by  a 
drive,  with  a  steep  and  thickly  wooded  hill  behind, 
a  wooded  glade  in  front,  and  a  clump  of  dark 
stately  cedars  in  its  immediate  precincts — alto- 
gether a  very  gracious  place  of  exile ;  and  the 
exiles  themselves — both  those  who  stayed  in  the 
Hall  and  those  who  came  from  time  to  time  to 

66 


The  Emigres  at  Juniper  Hall 

visit  it  —  were  all  persons  of  high  distinction. 
Among  them  were  the  Marquise  de  la  Chitre, 
M.de  Narbonne,  M.de  Montmorency,  M.  Jaucourt,^ 
M.  Malouet,^  the  Princesse  d'Hennin,  Talleyrand, 
Lally-Tollendal,  and  General  d'Arblay,  who  had 
been  Lafayette's  adjutant  and  was  presently  to  be 
Fanny  Burney's  husband.  Though  they  were 
poor,  they  were  not  quite  destitute;  though  their 
property  had  been  confiscated,  they  had  money  to 
go  on  with.  They  entertained.  Fanny  Burney, 
then  on  a  visit  to  her  sister,  Mrs,  Phillips,  was 
one  of  their  guests,  and  it  is  to  her  Diary  and 
Letters  that  we  have  to  go  for  most  of  our  in- 
formation about  their  sojourn. 

Miss  Burney  was  delighted  with  everything  and 
everybody — especially  with  Madame  de  Stael  and 
M.  de  Narbonne.  Of  the  former  she  writes  : 
"  She  is  a  woman  of  the  first  abilities,  I  think,  I 
have  ever  seen  ;  she  is  more  in  the  style  of  Mrs. 
Thrale  than  of  any  other  celebrated  character,  but 
she  has  infinitely  more  depth,  and  seems  an  even 
more  profound  politician  and  metaphysician."  Of 
the  latter :  "He  bears  the  highest  character  for 
goodness,  sweetness  of  manners,  and  ready  wit. 
You  could  not  keep  your  heart  from  him  if  you  saw 
him  only  for  half  an  hour."  The  constant  play  of 
wit  and  the  serious  interest  taken  in  literary  things 

^  He  had  been  an  officer  and  a  Deputy,  and  he  accompanied 
Talleyrand  on  his  mission  to  London.  Afterwards  he  was 
Louis  xvHi.'s  Minister  of  Marine. 

^  One  of  the  leaders  of  the  Royalist  party  in  the  Constituant 
Assembly.    He  died  as  Minister  of  Marine  in  1814. 

67 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

gave  her  a  new  and  refreshing  experience.  In  the 
midst  of  their  trials  these  French  exiles  could 
write  tragedies — or  at  all  events  Madame  de  Stael 
could  write  them — and  read  them  aloud,  and  listen 
to  the  reading  of  them  in  the  drawing-room.  But 
that  picture  needs  to  be  supplemented  from  the 
pen  of  Dr.  Bollmann. 

'*  The  Stael  is  a  genius — an  extraordinary,  eccen- 
tric woman  in  all  that  she  does.  She  only  sleeps 
during  a  very  few  hours,  and  is  uninterruptedly  and 
fearfully  busy  all  the  rest  of  the  time.  Whilst  her 
hair  is  being  dressed,  whilst  she  breakfasts,  in  fact 
during  a  third  of  the  day,  she  writes.  She  has  not 
sufficient  quiet  to  look  over  what  she  has  written." 

She  gave  it,  in  fact,  to  M.  de  Narbonne  to  look 
over  and  to  copy,  and  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  this 
was  one  of  the  tests  under  which  M.  de  Narbonne's 
devotion  to  her  broke  down.  But  that  is  to 
anticipate.  We  have  first  to  note  how  her  rela- 
tions with  M.  de  Narbonne  cut  short  her  intimacy 
with  Miss  Burney. 

Madame  de  Stael  had  invited  Miss  Burney  to 
visit  her ;  but  scandals  were  abroad,  and  Dr. 
Burney  intervened.  He  admitted  Madame  de 
Stael's  "literary  and  intellectual  powers," — 

*'  But,"  he  added,  "as  nothing  human  is  allowed 
to  be  perfect,  she  has  not  escaped  censure.  Her 
house  was  the  centre  of  Revolutionists  previous  to 
the  loth  of  August,  after  her  father's  departure, 
and  she  has  been  accused  of  partiality  to  M.  de 

68 


Scandals  Abroad 

N .      But    perhaps    all    may    be    Jacobinical 

malignity.  However,  unfavourable  stories  of  her 
have  been  brought  hither,  and  the  Burkes  and 
Mrs.  Ord  have  repeated  them  to  me.  .  .  .  If  you 
are  not  absolutely  in  the  house  of  Madame  de 
Stael  when  this  arrives,  it  would  perhaps  be 
possible  for  you  to  waive  the  visit  to  her,  by  a 
compromise  of  having  something  to  do  for  Susy." 

Fanny  Burney's  reply  was  very  characteristic 
of  the  country  which  invented  Mrs.  Grundy. 
She  did  not  believe  the  calumny,  she  said,  but  she 
should  certainly  behave  as  if  she  did.  "  She  is 
very  plain,"  she  writes;  "he  is  very  handsome; 
her  intellectual  endowments  must  be  with  him  her 
sole  attraction.  ...  I  think  you  could  not  spend 
a  day  with  them  and  not  see  that  their  commerce 
is  that  of  pure  but  exalted  and  most  elegant 
friendship."     But  she  continues  : — 

"  I  would  nevertheless  give  the  world  to  avoid 
being  a  guest  under  their  roof,  now  I  have  heard 
even  the  shadow  of  such  a  rumour ;  and  I  will,  if 
it  be  possible  without  hurting  or  offending  them. 
I  have  waived  and  waived  acceptance  almost  from 
the  moment  of  Madame  de  Stael's  arrival.  I 
prevailed  with  her  to  let  my  letter  go  alone  to 
you,  and  I  have  told  you,  with  regard  to  your 
answer,  that  you  were  sensible  of  the  honour  her 
kindness  did  me,  and  could  not  refuse  to  her 
request  the  week's  furlough  ;  and  then  followed 
reasons  for  the  compromise  you  pointed  out,  too 
diffuse  for  writing.  As  yet  they  have  succeeded, 
though  she  is  surprised  and  disappointed.     She 

69 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

wants  us  to  study  French  and  English  together, 
and  nothing  could  to  me  be  more  desirable  but 
for  this  invidious  report." 

"  Est-ce  qu'une  femme  est  en  tutelle  pour  la 
vie  en  ce  pays  ? "  was  Madame  de  Stael's  com- 
ment on  the  situation.  It  seemed  to  her  that 
Miss  Burney,  who  was  forty,  was  behaving  as  if 
she  were  fourteen.  No  doubt  she  saw  through 
the  reasons  that  were  given  to  the  reason  that 
was  suppressed.  But  she  tried  not  to  be  angry, 
and  sent  an  amiable  message  through  Mrs. 
Phillips:  "  Dites  a  Mile  Burney  que  je  ne  lui 
en  veux  pas  du  tout — que  je  quitte  le  pays 
I'aimant  bien  sincerement,  et  sans  rancune." 

She  had,  in  fact,  just  then,  other  things  besides 
the  behaviour  of  Miss  Burney  to  think  about. 
She  was  parting  not  only  from  Miss  Burney,  but 
also  from  M.  de  Narbonne  himself ;  and  her  grief 
was  not  lessened  by  the  fact  that  she  was  to  join 
her  husband.  Exactly  what  had  passed  between 
her  and  her  lover  we  do  not  know.  But  we  have 
Madame  Rdcamier's  word  for  it  that  "  M.  de 
Narbonne  behaved  very  badly,  as  successful  men 
too  often  do " ;  and  we  have  Mrs.  Phillips' 
account  of  the  parting  :  "  Madame  de  Stael  could 
not  rally  her  spirits  at  all,  and  seemed  like  one 
torn  from  all  that  was  dear  to  her."  And  then 
again,  in  the  same  letter :  "I  came  home  with 
Madame  de  Stael  and  M.  de  Narbonne.  The 
former  actually  sobbed  in  saying  farewell." 

And  so  back  again  to  Switzerland. 

70 


CHAPTER  VII 

Madame  de  Stael  returns  to  Switzerland — Her  exertions  on  behalf 
of  the  Emigres — Correspondence  on  this  subject  with  Henri 
Meister — Death  of  Madame  Necker — Benjamin  Constant 
introduces  himself. 

Sainte-Beuve's  picture  of  Madame  de  Stael's  life 
in  Switzerland  during  the  Terror  is  well  known. 
"She  passed  the  time,"  he  says,  "in  the  country 
of  Vaud,  with  her  father  and  some  refugee  friends, 
M.  de  Montmorency  and  M.  Jaucourt.  On  these 
terraces  of  Coppet  her  most  constant  meditations 
contrasted  the  dazzling  sunlight  and  the  peace  of 
nature  with  the  horrors  everywhere  let  loose  by 
the  hand  of  man.  Her  talent  maintained  a  re- 
ligious silence  ;  from  afar  were  heard,  muffled  and 
thick  as  the  beating  of  the  oars  upon  the  Lake,  the 
measured  strokes  of  the  guillotine  upon  the  scaffold. 
The  state  of  oppression  and  anguish  in  which  she 
remained  during  these  terrible  months  only  suffered 
her,  in  the  intervals  of  her  active  devotion  to 
others,  to  desire  death  for  herself,  and  to  look 
forward  to  the  end  of  the  world  and  of  this  lost 
human  race." 

The  account  has  a  certain  poetical  truth,  but 
it  is  no  more  literally  true  than  is  the  statement 
of  Dr.  Stevens  that  Madame  de  Stael  "  made  the 

71 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Coppet  mansion  an  asylum  for  Frenchmen  who 
were  fleeing  from  the  guillotine."  She  was  hardly 
at  Coppet  at  all  during  the  period,  owing  to 
M.  Necker's  fear  that  the  house  might  be  raided 
and  its  inhabitants  kidnapped  and  carried  off  to 
France ;  and  her  talent  was  not  silent.  In  one 
pamphlet  she  pleaded  eloquently  with  the  French 
people  for  the  life  of  Marie-Antoinette  ;  in  another 
she  pleaded  with  Pitt  that  he  should  make  peace 
with  France.  She  was  writing,  at  the  same  time, 
though  she  did  not  publish  it  until  later,  her 
treatise  De  V Influence  des  Passions  sur  le  Bonheur 
des  Individus  et  des  Nations. 

It  is  a  remarkable  work,  immature  perhaps,  as 
many  critics  have  said,  but  not  the  less  character- 
istic. As  in  almost  everything  that  Madame  de 
Stael  wrote,  the  personal  note  is  somewhat  louder 
than  it  is  meant  to  be.  To  read  it  with  care  is  to 
see  the  particular  masquerading  in  the  garments 
of  the  general,  and  a  confession  tricked  out  as  a 
philosophy.  A  passage  has  already  been  quoted 
from  it  which  can  only  be  read  as  a  confession  of 
the  writer's  failure  to  find  happiness  in  marriage. 
There  are  many  other  passages  which  can  only 
be  read  as  confessions  of  her  failure  to  find  happi- 
ness in  love,  and  as  veiled — but  very  thinly  veiled 
— protests  that  she  has  been  treated  badly  by  her 
lover.  "  It  is  certain,"  she  declares,  "that  love  is 
of  all  passions  the  most  fatal  to  human  happiness." 
It  confers,  for  a  few  brief  instants,  a  supreme  joy  ; 
but  this  comes  to  an  end,  and  then :  ''One  goes 

72 


r 


A  Woman's  Tragedy 

on  living  without  any  chance  that  the  future  will 
give  one  back  the  past."  And  this  is  a  woman's 
tragedy  far  more  than  a  man's. 

"  Love  is  woman's  whole  existence.  It  is  only 
an  episode  in  the  lives  of  men.  Reputation, 
honour,  esteem,  everything  depends  upon  how  a 
woman  conducts  herself  in  this  regard ;  whereas, 
according  to  the  rules  of  an  unjust  world,  the  laws 
of  morality  itself  are  suspended  in  men's  relations 
with  women.  They  may  pass  as  good  men 
though  they  have  caused  women  the  most  terrible 
suffering  which  it  is  in  the  power  of  one  human 
being  to  inflict  upon  another.  They  may  be  re- 
garded as  loyal  though  they  have  betrayed  them. 
They  may  have  received  from  a  woman  marks  of 
a  devotion  which  would  so  link  two  friends,  two 
fellow-soldiers,  that  either  would  feel  dishonoured 
if  he  forgot  them,  and  they  may  consider  them- 
selves free  of  all  obligations  by  attributing  the 
services  to  love — as  though  this  additional  gift  of 
love  detracted  from  the  value  of  the  rest.  No 
doubt  there  are  men  whose  character  furnishes  an 
honourable  exception ;  but — such  is  the  force  of 
public  opinion  in  the  matter  —  there  are  few 
who  would  dare,  not  fearing  ridicule,  to  pro- 
claim, in  the  affairs  of  the  heart,  the  delicacy 
of  principle  which  a  woman  would  deem  her- 
self obliged  to  assume  even  if  she  did  not 
feel  it." 

Decidedly  these  generalisations  have  a  very 
particular  meaning,  and  the  dots  stand  ready  to 
be  put  upon  the  i's.     It  was  passion,  and  no  lighter 

73 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

sentiment,  that  Madame  de  Stael  had  felt  for 
'  M,  de  Narbonne.  We  find  the  word  in  italics 
in  one  of  Miss  Berry's  letters  describing  her 
own  relations  with  Madame  de  Stael :  "  She 
was  too  much  occupied  with  her  passion  '  de  s'en 
apercevoir  de  mon  existence.'"  The  services 
which  she  had  rendered  him  were  the  highest, 
since  she  had  first  pushed  him  into  Cabinet  office, 
and  then  saved  his  life,  at  the  risk  of  her  own, 
when  he  was  proscribed.  And  he  had  been 
ungrateful ;  he  had  "  behaved  badly  "  ;  she  had 
pursued  her  romance  to  England,  only  to  see 
it  end.  That  was  the  bitter  reflection  that  was 
uppermost  in  her  mind  and  dominated  her  life 
during  this  time  of  exile.  She  poured  out  her 
soul  on  paper. 

Yet,  at  the  same  time,  she  was  active.  Activity 
was,  at  all  times,  almost  a  disease  with  her ;  and 
now  there  was  a  double  need  for  it.  Her  thoughts 
required  distraction,  and  there  was  work  for  her 
to  do.  We  trace  the  course  of  her  life  best  in  the 
series  of  her  letters  to  Henri  Meister. 

Henri  Meister  was  a  man  of  fifty,  and  an  old 
friend  of  the  Necker  family.  His  father  and 
Necker's  father,  the  Genevan  professor,  had  pelted 
each  other  with  pamphlets  in  a  theological  dispute. 
He  had  himself  succeeded  Madame  Necker  as  a 
dependent  in  the  house  of  Madame  Vermenoux. 
The  Neckers  had  helped  to  "introduce"  him  in 
Paris,  where  he  had  become  first  Grimm's  col- 
laborator and  then  his  successor  as  editor  of  the 

74 


Exertions  on  Behalf  of  the  Emigres 

Correspondence  LitUraire}  Madame  de  Stael's 
letters  to  him  were  mostly,  if  not  exclusively, 
on  matters  of  business.  On  other  matters  he 
was  not  in  her  confidence ;  but  he  was  glad 
to  be  useful  to  her,  and  she  gave  him  the 
opportunity. 

It  is  not  until  late  in  1794  that  she  dates  from 
Coppet.  The  earlier  letters  are  mostly  from 
Nyon  and  Lausanne — one  or  two  of  them  from 
Zurich  and  the  Swiss  Baden.  That  definitely 
settles  her  whereabouts  during  these  years.  Her 
chief,  and  almost  her  sole,  preoccupation,  we 
find,  is  with  her  friends  the  dmigr^s.  She 
managed  to  get  several  of  them  safely  out  of 
France  with  Swiss  or  Swedish  passports.  Her 
husband,  though  he  was  not  with  her,  and  kept 
diplomatically  in  the  background,  was  her  col- 
laborator in  this  good  work.  Some  of  the 
refugees — M.  de  Narbonne,  to  our  astonishment, 
was  among  them — found  a  shelter  in  her  house, 
not  at  Coppet,  as  Dr.  Stevens  says,  but  at 
Nyon.  She  could  not  receive  them  all,  how- 
ever ;  and  for  the  rest  she  sought  to  find  other 
Swiss  domiciles.  Notably  we  find  her  much 
exercised  about  the  fortunes  of  Talleyrand,  of 
whom  she  writes  as  if,  now  that  the  ardour  of 
M,  de  Narbonne  had  cooled,  she  held  him  dearer 
than  a  friend.  But  the  story  will  be  best  told  in 
extracts  from  the  letters. 

^  A  MS.  journal  of  literary  gossip,  circulated  only  among  sub- 
scribers.    Most  of  the  German  princes  took  it. 

75 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  Nyon,  December  23,  1793. 

"Two  gentlemen,  de  Montmorency  and  de 
Jaucourt,  have  been  here  with  me  for  two  months 
under  Swedish  names  ;  M.  de  Narbonne  is  coming 
under  a  Spanish  name.  Berne  knows  it,  and  allows 
it,  because  I  am  living  absolutely  alone  in  the 
country,  and  because  it  is  abundantly  proved  that 
we  only  aspire  to  the  most  obscure  retirement. 
But  the  Bishop  of  Autun,  whom  I  love  so  dearly, 
cannot  be  received  here  on  account  of  the  demo- 
cratic opinions  which  he  formerly  held.  Opinion 
in  your  canton  is  more  liberal.  Be  so  good  as 
to  tell  me  if  I  can,  with  some  expectation  of 
security,  hire  there  for  the  spring  a  country  house 
to  which  I  can  invite  M.  de  Talleyrand.  Tell 
me  if  Zurich  is  willing  to  give  expression  to  the 
moderation  of  its  opinions  by  according  an  asylum 
to  men  who,  on  account  of  a  similar  moderation, 
are  being  persecuted.  Tell  me,  finally,  if  I  may 
be  indebted  to  you  for  the  happiness  of  spending 
the  summer  with  you  and  with  my  friends.  If 
that  be  impossible,  I  will  ask  you  to  procure  me 
some  information  about  Schaffhausen.  That 
would  be  much  less  convenient ;  but,  in  any  case, 
what  I  want  is  a  house  which  may  serve  as  a 
shelter  from  the  insults  that  are  in  the  air  and  as 
a  retreat  from  the  passions  of  men." 

''February  19,  1794. 

**  I  have  read  in  the  Schaffhausen  Gazette  that 
the  Bishop  of  Autun  has  been  expelled  from 
England.  I  should  not  believe  this  story  if  it 
were  not  that  I  have  had  no  English  news  for  a 
fortnight.     The  report  has  so  upset  me  that  I  can 

76 


Correspondence  with  Henri  Meister 

hardly  hold  my  pen  in  my  hands.  If  he  came 
here,  I  should  be  only  too  happy.  But  it  seems 
that  he  is  going  to  America;  but  .  .  .  If  it  is 
God's  will  that  the  rumour  of  this  fresh  misfortune 
is  untrue,  I  will  write  and  ask  you  to  insert  a 
denial  in  the  paper. 

"What  do  you  know  about  M.  Ott's  country 
house  at  Zurich  ?  " 

"  Nyon,  March  12,  1794. 

*'  M.  Ott's  house  seems  to  be  the  very  thing 
to  suit  me ;  but  if  I  go  there  I  prefer  to  board 
myself,  as  that  is  the  easier  and  more  economical 
plan.  I  think,  however,  that,  as  I  am  not  quite 
sure  that  I  am  not  going  to  London,  and  am  still 
less  sure  that  I  shall  please  the  Zurich  people  so 
well  that  they  will  allow  me  to  have  two  or  three 
of  my  friends  in  the  house  with  me,  I  had  better 
begin  by  staying  a  week  with  M.  Ott  in  the  town. 
During  that  time  I  will,  with  your  help  and  the 
grace  of  God,  bring  all  my  little  coquetries  into 
play ;  and,  if  they  succeed,  I  will,  with  your 
assistance,  choose  my  own  house,  and  a  pension 
for  Madame  de  Chatre,  who  is  not  comfortable  in 
the  Canton  of  Berne.  I  will  settle  at  Winterthur 
or  Rapperswyl,  as  M.  de  Montesquiou  ^  has  done  at 
Bremgarten,  if  that  suits  them  better.  .  .  .  But  say 
nothing  and  do  nothing  until  I  arrive.  I  sometimes 
get  what  I  want  in  a  personal  interview.  .  .  . 

"  I  begin  to  detest  Europe,  and  my  last  attempt 
for  my  friends  shall  be  Zurich.  For  my  own  part, 
I  shall  drag  on  for  a  while  longer.     But  how,  at 

^  He  had  commanded  the  army  of  the  South  and  conquered 
Savoy,  but  was  accused  of  treason  in  November  1792,  and  took 
refuge  in  Switzerland. 

77 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

seven-and-twenty,  is  one  to  cut  oneself  adrift  from 
the  past  ?     How  to  love  as  one  used  to  love  ?  " 

"  Lausanne,  March  28,  1794. 
"  My  mother's  condition  is  so  sad  that  I  shall 
perhaps  have  to  give  up  the  idea  of  settling  at 
Zurich.  I  hope  my  friends  may  be  received  there, 
but  I  shall  not  live  there  myself.  If  it  is  my  fatal 
name  that  frightens  people,  my  opinion  is  that,  my 
name  being  more  formidable  than  my  person,  I  had 
better  go  and  show  myself  there,  since  my  presence 
has  nearly  always  been  found  supportable." 

So  the  letters  proceed ;  and  Madame  de  Stael's 
life  during  the  period  which  they  cover  can  easily 
be  reconstructed  from  them.  It  is  a  life  of 
feverish  activity  on  behalf  of  others,  and  at  the 
same  time  of  dull  despair  on  her  own  account, 
with  literary  work  for  the  inevitable  anodyne. 
The  old  order  has  broken  up,  and  everything 
that  she  has  been  used  to  live  for  has  come  to  an 
end.  Her  father  is  in  exile  and  disgrace ;  her 
mother  is  dying.  Many  of  her  friends  have 
perished  on  the  scaffold.  The  rest  are  scattered 
and  impoverished.  She  has  no  love,  save  her 
father's,  to  lean  upon ;  for  she  has  never  loved 
her  husband,  and  M.  de  Narbonne  is  cold,  and 
the  Bishop  of  Autun  has  gone  to  Philadelphia. 
One  hardly  knows  whether  or  not  to  be  surprised, 
in  such  conditions,  to  find  her  turning  longing 
eyes  to  France,  and  threatening  to  return  thither 
long  before  the  events  of  Thermidor  have  checked 
the  falling  of  the  knife. 

1^ 


Death  of  Madame  Necker 

She  tells  Henri  Meister  of  this  project  in 
a  letter  written  from  Baden  on  her  way  back 
from  her  visit  to  Zurich.  Her  reasons  are  not 
given,  but  something  in  the  letter  suggests  that 
she  hoped,  by  her  presence  at  Paris,  to  save 
a  portion  of  her  fortune  from  the  wreck,  and  that 
Henri  Meister  approved  of  the  attempt,  and  that 
it  was  a  part  of  her  plan  that  her  father  and 
mother  should  follow  her. 

"  We  cannot  all  start  at  once.  The  season  is 
too  bad  for  my  mother  to  travel.  Besides,  the  cost 
would  be  too  much  for  me.  I  shall  go  at  very 
small  expense,  in  excellent  and  very  useful  com- 
pany. I  shall  send  them  the  necessary  money  to  join 
me,  and  they  will  find  the  business  getting  on  nicely. 
I  think  I  ought  not  to  hesitate  a  moment." 

She  did  not  start,  however.  Probably  the 
desire  to  be  up  and  doing  counted  for  more  in 
the  scheme  than  any  serious  expectation  of  rescu- 
ing her  own  or  her  father's  property  from  the 
debacle  ;  but  however  that  may  have  been,  she  had 
to  abandon  her  intention  when  she  came  home  to 
find  herself  in  a  house  of  mourning — her  mother 
dead,  and  her  father  needing  all  the  consolation 
that  her  presence  could  afford. 

Perhaps  she  had  not  loved  her  mother  over 
much.  Madame  Necker  had  been  too  much  the 
schoolmistress  and  Madame  de  Stael  too  little 
the  docile  scholar  for  perfect  sympathy  to  subsist 
between  them.     The   standing   quarrel   between 

79 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

the  older  and  the  younger  generations  had  had 
some  aggravating  circumstances  in  their  case. 
Right,  and  duty,  and  happiness  were  three  ideas 
which  they  defined  differently.  If  the  daughter 
had  some  of  the  mother's  pedantry,  the  mother 
had  always  been  shocked  by  the  daughter's 
passion  —  shocked  equally  by  her  dependence 
upon  love  and  her  independence  of  marriage ; 
and  their  life  together  had  been  more  or  less  of 
an  armed  truce,  with  Necker,  who  loved  them 
both,  for  mediator.  But  the  blow  was  none  the 
less  a  blow,  falling,  as  it  did,  at  a  time  of  universal 
tragedy.  If  only  for  her  father's  sake,  she  was 
overwhelmed  with  grief 

Her  first  thought  was  that  she  must  take  him 
away  somewhere.  She  inquired  from  Henri 
Meister  about  houses  at  Zurich.  "  Could  you 
find  us  a  furnished  house  in  the  suburbs? 
Should  we  find  M.  Ott's  house  fit  to  live  in 
if  we  arrived  unexpectedly  ?  And  will  you  open 
negotiations  for  a  place  at  Weiningen,  arranging 
to  provide  the  furniture  ?  I  think  I  will  take  my 
father  there."  But  then  a  difficulty  arises  :  "  My 
mother  has  left  such  extraordinary  instructions  as 
to  the  embalming  and  preservation  of  her  body — 
how  it  is  to  be  laid  out  under  glass  in  spirits  of 
wine — that  if,  as  she  imagined,  the  appearance  of 
her  features  had  been  preserved,  my  poor  father 
would  have  passed  his  whole  life  in  gazing  on 
her.  ...  It  follows  that,  until  the  monument  is 
finished, — until  August,  that  is  to  say, — he  will  not 

80 


Efforts  on  Behalf  of  de  Saussure 

leave  this  part  of  the  country.  After  that,  I  think, 
he  will  have  no  objection  to  going  to  Zurich ; 
he  said  so  in  so  many  words.  But  we  must  stay 
here  for  the  summer.  He  wanted  to  go  back  to 
Coppet  to  wait  till  the  monument  was  finished  ;  but 
I  besought  him  to  keep  the  bier  at  Beaulieu,  as 
Coppet  frightens  me  for  various  reasons." 

So  they  lingered  on  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Lausanne,  and  the  correspondence  harks  back  to 
the  provision  of  domiciles  for  the  dmigrds,  and 
suggests  that  strings  may  be  pulled  for  the 
advantage  of  M.  de  Saussure — the  philosopher 
who  had  climbed  Mont  Blanc,  a  connection  by 
marriage  of  the  Neckers,  who  had  lost  the  greater 
part  of  his  fortune  :  *'  He  has  been  thinking  about 
Russia.  Would  the  Empress  perhaps  allow  him 
to  give  public  lectures,  or  interest  him  in  the 
education  of  the  sons  of  the  Grand  Duke  ?  Or 
would  some  nobleman,  dazzled  by  the  name  of 
such  a  tutor,  entrust  his  son  to  him  ?  Would  not 
Grimm  honour  himself  by  putting  forward  so 
illustrious  a  man — taking  care  not  to  mention  his 
relationship  to  us  ? "  Then  there  is  mention  of 
something  that  Madame  de  Stael  has  been 
writing  —  an  Epitre  au  Malheur.  The  only 
things  of  which  there  is  no  mention  are  certain 
episodes  in  the  writer's  social  life,  and  certain 
acquaintances  which  she  was  then  making. 

It  was  at  that  period  that  she  came  to  know  of 
Count  Joseph  de  Maistre,  Catholic  dmigrd  and 
reactionary  ;  but  he  hardly  counts.  They  did  not 
F  8i 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

like  each  other,  though  they  respected  each 
other's  gifts.  The  only  trace  left  by  their  few 
interviews  is  an  epigram  —  one  of  the  many 
epigrams  by  which  men  avenged  themselves  for 
Madame  de  Stael's  success  in  outshining  them  in 
society.  She  was  too  much  used,  he  thought,  to 
adulation :  "  S'il  lui  avait  plu  d'accoucher  en 
public  dans  la  chapelle  de  Versailles  on  aurait 
battu  des  mains."  The  other  acquaintance  was 
of  deep  and  lasting  importance  to  her  life. 

The  time  was  September  1794.  Madame  de 
Stael  was  living  in  Lausanne,  and  a  young  man 
who  was  passing  through  Lausanne  set  out  to  call 
on  her.  They  had  many  mutual  friends.  He 
had  cousins  who  knew  her  rather  well,  and  were 
dazzled  by  her — one  cousin  in  particular  who  had 
written  of  her  as  "a  very  extraordinary  woman  of 
distinctly  superior  genius."  Nothing  was  more 
natural  than  that  he  should  desire  to  know  her, 
and  should  seize  the  opportunity  presented  by  his 
visit  to  the  town.  As  he  walked  towards  her 
house,  he  met  her  driving  out ;  but  he  had  the 
courage  of  his  curiosity.  He  signalled  to  the 
driver  to  stop,  and  approached  the  carriage  and 
introduced  himself.  He  was  Monsieur  Benjamin 
Constant.  Madame  de  Stael  invited  him  to  enter 
the  carriage  and  drive  home  with  her  to  supper. 
He  took  his  seat  by  her  side,  and  so  the  curtain 
drew  up  on  the  new  drama. 


82 


^^-'^ 


nilff.V  .9i!hM  vff  ^(liJ/iiii'J  :,  '.. .- 


was 


.  beptember    • 

BENJAMIN   CONSTANT 
From  a  Painting  by  Mdlle.  Vallier 

Photo  hy Braun  CUment etdli''''    ^^^^"    father  WeU,   aild    • 

-;  -^-. — «  r.c  cousin  in  particular  who  n  j  . 

f  her  as  "  a  very  extraordinary  womati  of 

jDerior  genius."     Nothings  wa»  more 

that  \      ■'      'd  desir 
;dze  the  ,..:..-.  j,,^ 

town.  hrr 


r-er. 


82 


CHAPTER   VIII 

Benjamin  Constant  de  Rebecque — His  ancestors — His  precocious 
childhood  —  His  dissolute  youth  —  He  meets  Madame  de 
Charri^re  at  Paris  and  visits  her  at  Colombier — Writes  the 
History  of  Religion  on  the  backs  of  playing-cards — Departure 
for  Brunswick — Affectionate  correspondence — Colombier  re- 
visited— The  end  of  the  liaison. 

Benjamin  Constant  de  Rebecque  was  French 
by  descent,  but  Swiss  by  birth  and  nationality. 
His  father's  family  came  from  Aire,  in  Artois. 
His  ancestor,  Augustin  de  Constant,  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Emperor  Charles  v.,  sent  on  a  mission 
to  France,  embraced  the  Reformed  religion,  ac- 
cepted an  appointment  from  Jeanne  d'Albret, 
and,  at  the  battle  of  Coutras,  saved  the  life  of 
Henri  iv.,  who  rewarded  him  with  the  governorship 
of  Marans,  had  ultimately  to  leave  the  country  in 
consequence  of  the  religious  persecutions,  and 
died  at  Lausanne.  His  mother,  nh  de  Chandieu, 
was  descended  from  Antoine,  Seigneur  of  Roche- 
Chandieu,  in  Dauphin^,  who  became  a  pastor  of 
the  Reformed  faith,  fled  to  Geneva  at  the  time  of 
the  Saint  Bartholomew  massacre,  was  recalled  by 
Henri  iv.,  as  whose  chaplain  he  acted  at  the 
battle  of  Coutras,  but  subsequently  returned  to 
Geneva,  where  he  died. 

One  of  Augustin  de  Constant's  great-grandsons 

83 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

was  Samuel  de  Constant,  governor  of  the  fortress 
of  Bois-le-Duc,  and  known  as  a  friend  of  Voltaire. 
This  Baron  de  Constant  had  two  daughters — the 
Marquise  de  Langallerie,  in  whose  house  at 
Lausanne  Voltaire  organised  his  theatre,  and 
Madame  de  Charriere  de  Bavois — and  four  sons, 
David  Constant  d'Hermenches,  Philippe,  Juste- 
Louis-Arnold,  and  Samuel. 

The  Constant  d'Hermenches  were  among 
Voltaire's  best  amateur  actors,  but  hardly  concern 
this  story.  Philippe  died  young.  Juste- Louis- 
Arnold  married  Henriette  de  Chandieu,  and 
became  the  father  of  Benjamin  ;  he  was  an  officer 
in  the  Dutch  service.  Samuel  married  Mademoi- 
selle Charlotte  Pictet,  of  an  old  and  notable 
Genevan  family,  and  settled  down  on  an  estate 
near  Lausanne,  where  four  children  were  born  to 
him — Benjamin's  four  cousins,  Rosalie,  Lisette, 
Juste,  and  Charles.  Rosalie,  ugly  and  deformed, 
but  keenly  witty  and  brilliantly  intelligent,  was 
much  in  her  cousin's  confidence,  and  was  the 
observant  and  by  no  means  silent  spectator  of  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  long  liaison  about  to  be  related. 
Much  of  our  intimate  knowledge  of  it  is  picked 
up  from  her  letters.  Her  brother  Charles  helped 
the  future  biographer  by  bequeathing  the  family 
papers  to  the  Public  Library  of  Geneva. 

Benjamin  was  an  only  child,  and  his  mother 
died  in  giving  birth  to  him,  in  1767.  He  was  at 
first  brought  up  by  his  maternal  grandmother, 
Madame  de  Chandieu,  and  his  aunt,  Madame  de 

84 


Benjamin  Constant 

Nassau,  n^e  de  Chandieu,  and  married  to  a 
German  Count  from  whom  she  was  separated. 
At  the  age  of  seven,  however,  his  father  took 
him  to  Holland  and  put  him  in  the  hands  of  a 
tutor.  A  number  of  his  letters  from  this  date 
onwards  have  been  preserved,  and  they  display  a 
precocity,  not  merely  of  scholarship  but  of  ideas, 
which  is  uncanny  and  almost  terrifying.  At  the 
age  of  eight  he  is  able  to  write  to  his  grand- 
mother :  "  I  think  I  am  paying  very  dearly  for 
knowledge  since  it  takes  me  away  from  you." 
At  the  age  of  nine  he  is  speaking  to  her  with 
enthusiasm  of  his  studies  :  "  I  am  reading  Roman 
history  and  Homer.  It  gives  me  great  pleasure, 
especially  Homer,  because  he  is  a  poet  and  I  like 
poetry,  and,  while  amusing  me,  he  gives  me  great 
ideas.  He  is  the  father  of  the  religion  of  the 
ancients." 

By  the  time  he   is   ten,  however,  he  has  dis- 
covered something  of  the  vanity  of  study. 

"My  dear  grandmother,"  he  writes,  *'let  us 
make  an  agreement.  Do  you  let  me  give  you  a 
little  of  my  health;  and  give  me  in  exchange  ten  of 
your  years.  I  should  be  the  gainer ;  for  I  should 
have  more  sense,  and,  having  learnt  Latin  and 
Greek,  and  all  the  things  that  I  must  know,  I 
should  learn  from  you  the  things  that  are  more 
essential.  For  what  do  the  thoughts  of  these 
ancients  matter?  I  have  not  to  live  with  them, 
and  I  think  I  shall  drop  them  altogether  as  soon 
as  I  am  of  an  age  to  live  in  the  society  of  living 
men  and  women." 

85 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

And  then  follows  a  still  more  striking  proof  of  the 
direction  in  which  his  young  thoughts  are  straying. 

"  I  sometimes  see  here  a  young  English  girl  of 
my  own  age  whom  I  prefer  to  Cicero,  Seneca, 
and  the  rest  of  them.  She  is  teaching  me  Ovid. 
She  has  never  read  him  or  heard  of  him,  but  I 
find  the  whole  of  Ovid  written  in  her  eyes.  I  am 
writing  a  little  romance  for  her,  and  am  sending 
you  the  first  pages  of  it.  You  shall  have  the  rest 
of  it  if  you  like." 

In  other  letters  we  have  the  picture  of  the 
boy's  daily  life.  He  is  studying  other  things 
besides  the  classical  authors — dancing  and  the 
harpsichord  to  wit.  He  goes  to  the  theatre ;  he 
plays  piquet;  it  is  his  good  fortune  to  "call 
sometimes  on  a  beautiful  young  lady  from 
England."  He  is  composing  an  opera,  "  verses 
and  music  and  all."  It  is  going  to  be  very 
beautiful,  and  he  is  *'  not  afraid  of  being  hissed." 
In  a  letter  to  his  father  we  find  a  further  trace  of 
the  "  little  romance  "  already  referred  to.  This  is 
the  document — apparently  a  dedication — written 
at  the  age  of  twelve  : — 

**  Les  Chevaliers  :    Heroic  Romance  by  H 

B C de  R at  Brussels,  1779. 

"  Letter  to  M.  Juste  Constant : — 

"  Dear  Author  of  my  days, — I  have  been  told 
that  fathers  find  the  works  of  their  sons  excellent, 
even  though  these  are  only  a  mass  of  remin- 
iscences thrown  together  without  art.     In  order 

86 


A  Cynic  in  the  Nursery 

to  demonstrate  the  falsity  of  this  report,  I  have 
the  honour  of  presenting  this  work  to  you,  in 
the  full  confidence  that,  although  it  is  I  who  have 
composed  it,  you  will  not  find  it  good,  and  will 
not  even  have  the  patience  to  read  it." 

Decidedly  this  is  a  precocity  which  differs  not 
in  degree  but  in  kind  from  all  the  stock  examples 
— from  the  case,  for  instance,  of  John  Stuart  Mill 
learning  Greek  at  the  age  of  three,  or  Macaulay 
in  his  high  chair  expounding  to  the  parlourmaid 
from  a  volume  as  big  as  himself.  Whereas  the 
others  were  only  clever  children,  Benjamin 
Constant  strikes  one  as  having  been  born  grown 
up — a  little  man  of  the  world  in  short  frocks — 
d^sabusd  in  the  nursery — disillusionised  by  intuitive 
anticipation.  We  shall  see,  as  we  proceed,  how 
the  child  was  father  to  the  man ;  how  the  child 
became  a  cynic,  while  the  cynic  remained  a  child, 
never  strong  enough  to  find  satisfaction  in 
cynicism,  always  going  back  to  the  deceptions 
which  did  not  deceive,  always  hankering  after  the 
emotions  of  which  he  found  himself  incapable. 

At  the  absurd  age  of  thirteen  his  University 
career  began,  and  he  was  successively  at  Oxford, 
at  Erlangen,  and  at  Edinburgh.  At  the  last- 
named  seat  of  learning  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Sir  James  Mackintosh ;  but  nothing  of  lively 
interest  is  known  about  this  portion  of  his  life. 
It  was  an  uprooted  life  in  which  no  new  ties,  even 
of  a  sentimental  sort,  seem  to  have  been  formed. 
He   was   serving    his   apprenticeship    to    cosmo- 

87 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

politanism — earning  the  appellation  of  "the  first 
of  the  cosmopolitans  " — becoming  a  cosmopolitan 
of  a  much  more  distinctive  type  than  was  fore- 
shadowed by  the  careers  of  such  predecessors  as 
Horace  Walpole  and  Baron  Grimm — a  man 
without  a  country  and  without  a  home. 

In  1787  we  find  him  in  Paris.  "How 
foolishly,"  he  afterwards  wrote,  "  I  wasted  there 
my  time,  my  money,  and  my  health ! "  He 
gambled,  of  course, — it  was  the  vice  of  the  age, — 
and  indulged  in  the  other  vices  natural  to  un- 
disciplined youth.  His  father  heard  of  his 
proceedings,  and  for  once  asserted  his  authority, 
and  summoned  him  to  Bois-le-Duc,  where  he  was 
in  garrison ;  but  Benjamin  rebelled  and  would  not 
come.  One  can  read  his  character  at  the  age  of 
twenty  in  the  letter  in  which  he  told  the  story 
of  this  impetuous  revolt. 

"  I  pictured  myself,"  he  wrote,  "as  a  poor  devil 
who  had  failed  in  all  his  projects.  I  was  bored, 
wretched,  more  sick  than  ever  of  my  melancholy 
life ;  and  I  pictured  this  poor  father  of  mine 
disappointed  of  all  his  hopes.  A  fixed  idea 
settled  in  my  head.  I  said  to  myself :  '  Let  me 
be  off ;  let  me  live  alone  ;  let  me  no  longer  cause 
unhappiness  to  my  father,  or  trouble  to  anyone.' 

"My  head  was  excited.  In  haste  I  pick  up 
three  shirts  and  a  few  pairs  of  stockings.  A 
saddler  in  the  house  opposite  to  me  hires  me  a 
post-chaise.  I  send  for  horses  to  drive  me  to 
Amiens.  I  get  into  my  carriage,  with  my  three 
shirts,  a  pair  of  slippers,  and  thirty-one  louis  in 

88 


Madame  de  Charri^re 

my  pocket.  I  drive  in  hot  haste.  In  twenty 
hours  I  cover  sixty-nine  leagues.  I  reach  Calais. 
I  embark.  I  arrive  at  Dover,  and  awake  as  if 
from  a  dream." 

A  walking  tour  was  thus  the  first  remedy 
which  he  tried  against  the  maladie  du  Steele. 
It  was  also  the  remedy  tried  at  the  same  date 
against  the  same  disorder  by  Ramond  de 
Carbonniere,  who,  upset  by  The  Sorrows  of 
Wertker,  restored  himself  to  mental  health  by 
making  first  ascents  in  the  Pyrenees.  His 
wanderings  in  the  Scottish  Highlands,  however, 
did  not  cure  him.  He  needed  not  Nature's  but 
Woman's  sympathy,  and  for  a  time  he  found 
what  he  sought  in  the  house  of  a  lady  whom  he 
had  met  in  Paris — Madame  de  Charriere,  the 
novelist,  author  of  Caliste  and  the  Lettres 
Neuchdteloises. 

Madame  de  Charriere  was  of  an  old  and  noble 
Dutch  family.  Isabelle  Agnes  Elizabeth  van 
Tuyll  van  Serooskerken  van  Zuylen  was  her 
maiden  name,  and  she  was  witty  rather  than 
beautiful.  After  rejecting  many  suitors,  she  saw 
the  time  arrive  when  she  could  no  longer  hope  to 
pick  and  choose,  and  in  these  circumstances 
she  accepted  the  hand  of  M.  de  Charriere,  a 
Swiss  gentleman  who  had  been  a  tutor  in  her 
father's  house.  He  took  her  to  live  at  Colombier, 
near  Neuch^tel. 

Save  for  a  new  building  or  two — notably  a 
handsome   schoolhouse — the   village  (or  perhaps 

89 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

one  should  call  it  a  little  town)  has  hardly  altered 
since  the  eighteenth  century.  An  old  castle,  now 
used  as  a  barrack,  frowns  from  the  brow  of  a  low 
hill  upon  ill-kept  avenues  which  stretch  away 
towards  the  reedy  marshes  and  the  Lake  shore. 
The  narrow  streets  are  silent  and  empty,  and  the 
grass  grows  in  them.  Your  impression,  as  you 
walk  through  them,  is  of  a  stagnant  place, 
detached  from  life  ;  you  think  of  Tennyson's  lines 
about  "  a  place  where  no  one  comes.  Or  hath  come 
since  the  making  of  the  world." 

You  can  find  Madame  de  Charriere's  house  if 
you  inquire  for  it,  though  no  mural  tablet  marks 
it  out,  and  no  photographer  has  put  it  on  a  picture 
postcard.  It  stands  a  little  away  from  the  main 
street,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  seems  half 
schloss  half  farm,  with  rough  sheds  for  stable  and 
coach-house,  built  round  a  court  containing  the 
inevitable  pump.  The  entrance  is  at  the  foot  of 
a  circular  tower,  which  you  ascend  (if  you  are 
bidden)  by  a  winding  stone  staircase  of  venerable 
age ;  and  you  may  be  shown  (by  the  favour  of  the 
present  tenants)  a  kitchen  which  is  obviously  a 
survival  of  a  remote  past,  a  dining-room  which  is 
dark  even  at  noon,  and  a  long  salon,  naturally 
cold,  and  difficult  to  warm,  built  above  one  of  the 
sheds,  and  looking  out  over  vegetable  gardens 
and  vineyards. 

Here  Madame  de  Charriere  sat,  and  wrote, 
and  was  bored.  She  had  nothing  in  common 
with  her  husband — nothing  in  common  with  more 

90 


A  Visit  to  Colombier 

than  two  or  three  of  her  neighbours.  "One's 
imagination,"  she  wrote,  "dries  up  here.  In  the 
matter  of  Hterature,  beyond  M.  Du  Peyrou,  with 
whom  I  sometimes  talk  about  Rousseau,  who 
dictates  a  note  for  me  to  his  servant  nearly  every 
day,  and  to  whom  I  also  write  nearly  every  day, 
there  is  no  one  here  to  whom  I  can  talk  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  on  the  subjects  of  greatest 
interest  to  me."  She  wrote,  therefore,  to  distract 
herself;  and  though  what  she  wrote  was  fiction, 
and  distinctly  good  fiction,  the  citizens  of 
Neuchatel  neither  sympathised  nor  understood. 
Her  lively  pictures  of  their  sluggish  manners  gave 
offence.  She  was  accused  of  caricaturing  and 
calumniating  individuals.  "It  was  bound  to  be," 
she  said,  "  though  I  had  not  thought  of  it  before. 
When  one  draws  a  fanciful  but  true  picture  of  a 
flock  of  sheep,  each  sheep  discovers  its  own  like- 
ness in  the  picture." 

To  this  dull  house  Benjamin  Constant  came 
upon  a  visit,  on  his  way  to  take  up  an  appoint- 
ment which  his  father  had  procured  for  him  at 
the  Court  of  Brunswick.  He  was  twenty,  and 
Madame  de  Charriere  was  forty-seven.  Their 
relations  were  bound,  in  the  long  run,  to  be 
governed  by  these  facts.  She  must  have  known 
it  from  the  first,  and  he  was  certain  to  discover 
it  before  any  great  lapse  of  time.  For  the 
moment,  however,  they  had  need  of  each  other, 
and  could  live  in  the  present,  looking  neither 
before  nor  after.     The  young  man  figured  as  the 

91 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

lady's  "poor  wounded  dove."  She  could  be 
with  half  her  nature  his  mistress,  and  with  the 
other  half  his  monitress  and  guardian  angel. 

The  visit  was  spun  out.  Two  months  elapsed 
before  Benjamin  could  tear  himself  away  ;  though 
the  link  between  them  was  doubtless  more  in- 
tellectual than  passionate.  They  could  talk  ;  and 
it  was  so  long  since  Madame  de  Charriere  had 
had  anyone  to  talk  to  who  understood,  or  was 
interested  in  what  she  had  to  say.  So  the 
long  October  and  November  evenings  were  all 
too  short  for  them,  while  they  sat  together  by 
the  subdued  lamplight  in  the  salon.  Benjamin 
was  engaged  upon  a  History  of  Religion,  which 
he  was  to  rewrite  many  times  before  publish- 
ing it ;  he  wrote  it  on  the  backs  of  playing- 
cards  which  he  threaded  together  on  a  string. 
Madame  de  Charriere  sat  opposite  to  him,  writing 
a  novel,  and  occasionally  reading  passages  aloud 
for  his  criticism.  Where  M.  de  Charriere  spent 
his  evenings  we  do  not  know — perhaps  in  the 
tavern  with  his  Swiss  friends,  perhaps  in  the 
kitchen  with  his  pipe  and  bowl.  It  must  have 
been  very  clear  to  him  that  he  was  not  wanted 
in  the  drawing-room. 

It  was  as  much  as  the  friends  could  do  to 
separate  when  midnight  struck.  The  hour  always 
found  them  in  the  midst  of  some  interminable  dis- 
cussion, now  philosophic,  and  now  sentimental ; 
and  they  sat  down  in  their  respective  bedrooms 
and  wrote  notes  to   send   to  each  other  by  the 

92 


Affectionate  Correspondence 

servant  as  soon  as  they  were  called.  Still  harder 
was  the  parting  when  Benjamin  had  at  last  to 
set  out  for  Brunswick.  The  letters  which  he 
despatched  to  her  as  often  as  he  stopped  to  change 
horses  on  the  journey  were  passionate  avowals. 

"  The  roads  are  frightful,  the  wind  is  cold,  and 
I  am  sad — sadder  to-day  than  I  was  yesterday, 
just  as  I  was  sadder  yesterday  than  the  day  before, 
and  shall  be  sadder  to-morrow  than  to-day.  To 
quit  you  for  a  single  day  is  hard  and  painful,  and 
every  day  is  a  fresh  pain  added  to  those  which 
have  gone  before." 

"  As  long  as  you  live,  and  as  long  as  I  live, 
I  shall  always  say  to  myself,  in  whatever  situation 
I  may  be:  'There  is  a  Colombier  in  the  world.' 
Before  I  knew  you  I  used  to  say  to  myself:  'If 
they  torture  me  too  much,  I  shall  kill  myself.' 
Now  I  say :  '  If  they  make  life  too  hard  for  me, 
I  have  a  retreat  at  Colombier.'" 

"  This  evening,  while  playing  loto,  I  thought 
of  you,  as  you  will  easily  believe.  The  idea  of 
you  mingled,  so  to  say,  with  the  room  in  which 
we  were ;  and  as  I  was  undressing,  a  moment 
since,  I  asked  myself :  '  Who  was  it,  then,  that  I 
found  so  charming  to-night  at  the  Duchess* 
reception  ? '  And,  in  an  instant,  I  realised  that 
it  was  you.  It  is  thus  that,  at  a  distance  of  250 
leagues  from  me,  you  contribute  to  my  happiness 
without  suspecting  it.  Adieu,  you  who  are  ten 
thousand  times  good,  ten  thousand  times  dear, 
ten  thousand  times  beloved." 

It  could  not  last,  of  course.     Nothing  is  more 
93 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

certain  than  that.  The  woman  of  seven-and-forty 
must  grow  old  while  the  lad  of  twenty  was  only 
growing  up.  Not  for  many  years  could  the  last 
love  of  the  one  run  concurrently  with  the  first  love 
of  the  other.  Autumn  must  decline  into  winter 
while  May  blossomed  into  June.  The  boy  must 
live  his  own  life,  and  she  must  let  him  live  it. 
The  most  that  she  could  hope  for  was  to  keep 
some  vague  lien  on  his  heart  by  not  insisting. 
There  was  a  Colombier  in  the  world  ;  and  if  she 
left  him  free  to  range,  he  would  sometimes,  when 
life  went  hardly  with  him,  remember  it  and  return 
to  it. 

And  so  it  happened.  At  first  Benjamin  wrote 
to  Madame  de  Charriere  from  Brunswick  to  tell 
her  of  his  boredom  and  his  melancholy.  "  How," 
he  asks,  "am  I  to  succeed?  How  am  I  to 
please  ?  How  am  I  to  live  ? "  But  presently 
he  writes  that  he  is  going  to  be  married  to 
Wilhelmina,  Baroness  von  Cram,  maid  of  honour 
to  the  Grand  Duchess.  She  was  ugly,  pock- 
marked, red-eyed,  and  thin.  So,  at  least,  says 
Rosalie  de  Constant,  who  was  astonished  at  her 
cousin's  choice.  She  adds,  however,  that  "her 
husband  adores  her  as  if  she  were  beautiful "  ; 
and  to  Madame  de  Charriere  the  husband  writes  : 
"  My  wife  makes  me  very  happy.  I  cannot  even 
wish  to  draw  nearer  to  you,  since  that  would 
alienate  me  from  her ;  but  I  shall  never  cease  to 
say:  '  The  pity  of  it ! ' " 

And    Madame  de   Charriere  forgave.      What 

94 


The  Cooling  of  Love's  Ardour 

else  could  she  do,  being  in  love  and  being  forty- 
nine  ?  She  forgave  and  waited ;  and  presently 
came  the  news  that  she  perhaps  was  waiting  for. 
Benjamin  writes  that  he  is  unhappy  with  his  wife 
— that  he  is  about  to  divorce  her — for  sufficient 
reasons :  "  The  day  after  to-morrow  I  am  to 
appear,  with  Madame  de  Constant,  before  a  Con- 
sistory which  wishes  to  amuse  itself  by  making 
efforts,  that  will  be  futile,  to  reconcile  us."  He 
adds  that  life  at  Brunswick  has  become  intolerable 
to  him,  that  he  expects  to  obtain  leave  of  absence, 
and  that  he  hopes  to  come  and  stay  with  her  at 
Colombier.  But  by  this  time  she  was  fifty-three, 
while  he  was  only  twenty-six. 

His  letters  at  this  stage  were  numerous,  but 
they  were  no  longer  in  the  same  tone  as  the  earlier 
letters.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  bitterness  of 
disillusion  rings  in  them  ;  not  merely  that  we  find 
excuses — replies,  no  doubt,  to  reproaches — for  not 
writing  oftener  and  not  coming  sooner.  We  find 
much  stronger  proof  in  them  of  the  cooling  of 
the  lover's  ardour.  Now  it  is  this  cynical  out- 
burst, apropos  of  some  chronique  scandaleuse 
that  he  is  relating :  "  I  like  to  see  the  sum  of 
pleasure  in  our  little  world  increase,  and,  as  I 
have  vowed  myself  not  only  to  celibacy  but  to 
continence,  I  am  quite  willing  that  others  should 
have  my  share  of  these  short-lived  enjoyments." 
Now  it  is  a  confession  of  some  love  affair 
which  his  correspondent  can  hardly  have  been 
best  pleased   to   read   about.     One   Charlotte — 

95 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Charlottechen — whom  we  shall  meet  again  in  the 
course  of  this  history,  has  been  pestering  him 
with  attentions,  proposing  to  sacrifice  honour  and 
fly  with  him.  A  certain  petite  comddienne  has 
called,  desiring  to  know  whether  he  is  willing  to 
renew  relations  that  have  been  interrupted.  She 
is,  in  some  way  not  described,  "protected"  by 
Charlottechen.  **You  will  admit,"  writes 
Benjamin,  "that  this  is  a  quaint  situation." 

And  still  Madame  de  Charriere  forgave.  For, 
at  any  rate,  he  did  correspond  with  her,  and  did 
come  to  see  her.  He  even  spent  a  winter  with 
her  at  Colombier ;  and  when  he  parted  from 
her  to  return  to  Brunswick,  in  order  that  it  might 
not  be  said  that  he  had  been  turned  out  of  a 
post  which  he  was  intending  to  resign,  he  wrote : 
"  Adieu.  I  embrace  you.  You  know  how  much 
I  love  you,  and  how  happy  it  makes  me  to  love." 
It  was  a  part  of  what  she  wanted,  though  not 
the  whole.  She  clung  to  the  small  place  in  his 
heart  which  was  still  reserved  for  her.  She  con- 
tinued to  cling  to  it  even  after  he  had  come  under 
the  new  spell  of  Madame  de  Stael ;  but  when  that 
happened  she  knew  that  the  end  was  near. 

"  I  find  him  much  changed,"  she  wrote.  "We 
laughed  together  at  nothing,  unless  it  were  at 
ourselves,  or  rather  at  each  other.  Besides,  the 
Neckers  and  the  Staels  were  so  many  arch- 
saints,  on  no  account  to  be  profaned.  The 
rupture  is  a  pity  for  me.  As  for  him,  who  is 
younger,   and    doubtless   needs    excitement  and 

96 


The  End  of  a  Liaison 

variety,  he  can  find  many  substitutes,  and 
Madame  de  Stael,  with  her  wit  and  her  plots 
and  plans,  her  alliances  and  quarrels  with  the 
entire  world  of  men,  is  much  more  to  him  than 
I  can  be." 

That  was  the  approach  of  the  end.  It  actually 
came  when  Benjamin  wrote  to  her  : — 

"  She  is  the  second  woman  whom  I  have  met 
who  could  have  taken  the  place  of  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  to  me.  You  know  who  was  the  first. 
In  fact,  she  is  a  being  apart,  a  superior  being, 
such  as  one  meets  only  once  in  a  century." 

After  that,  all  was  indeed  over.  It  was  only 
a  question  of  formally  speaking  the  last  words 
over  the  grave  of  a  dead  love.  Benjamin 
Constant  seems  to  have  spoken  them  in  a  letter 
dated  March  26,  1796:  "Farewell  you  who 
have  embellished  eight  years  of  my  life  .  .  .  you 
whom  I  can  appreciate  better  than  you  will 
ever  be  appreciated  by  anyone  else.  Farewell. 
Farewell." 

He  was  twenty-nine  when  he  wrote  this,  and 
she  was  fifty-six.  She  had  nine  more  years  to 
live — nine  lonely  years  of  slow  descent  into  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow,  by  the  side  of  a  husband, 
now  stone  deaf,  to  whom  she  was  indifferent,  in 
the  midst  of  a  dull  provincial  society  which 
did  not  understand  her.  He  was  at  the  be- 
ginning of  a  long  entanglement,  marked  by 
strange  vicissitudes,  for  which  the  previous  romance 
had  merely  been  the  preparation. 
^  97 


CHAPTER   IX 

Benjamin  Constant's  intimacy  with  Madame  de  Stael  —  What 
Rosahe  de  Constant  thought — The  Paris  salon  reopened — 
Services  rendered  to  Talleyrand — And  to  Benjamin  Constant 
— Revolt  and  reconquest — The  birth  of  Albertine. 

Madame  de  Stael  and  Madame  de  Charriere 
had  a  slight  acquaintance  with  each  other.  The 
younger  lady  had  even  gushed  over  the  elder  in 
her  impulsive  style.  "  It  is  in  Holland,  it  seems," 
she  had  written,  "that  one  learns  the  French 
language  best ; "  and,  in  the  midst  of  the  Reign 
of  Terror,  she  deplored  having  already  read 
Caliste  ten  times,  and  being  therefore  unable  to 
fly  to  it  as  a  fresh  consolation  for  her  troubles. 
The  elder  lady  was  less  enthusiastic.  As  an 
eighteenth-century  purist,  she  disapproved  of 
Madame  de  Stael's  prose  style.  It  was  a 
"rhapsodical  rigmarole,"  and  she  wondered  what 
Bossuet  and  F^nelon  would  have  thought  of  it. 
Benjamin  Constant  was  inclined  to  the  same 
view  until  he  came  under  the  personal  spell.  In 
September  1793  he  writes:  "I  have  not  seen 
Madame  de  Stael,  and  have  no  curiosity  to  do 
so."  Two  months  later,  he  pens  a  sarcastic 
criticism  of  the  Apologie  de  la  Reine.  It  seems 
to  him  affected  and  insincere. 

98 


Acquaintance  Ripens  into  Intimacy 

"What,"  he  asks,  "is  the  sense  of  this  plati- 
tude :  '  Brilliant  and  frivolous,  like  happiness 
and  beauty '  ?  The  idea  is  false.  Happiness  is 
neither  brilliant  nor  frivolous.  And  then  those 
antitheses,  and  those  balanced  phrases  when  one 
has  before  one's  eyes  the  picture  of  such  long  and 
fearful  tortures !     One  could  spit  on  the  thing." 

So  the  introduction  was  delayed  until  Ben- 
jamin's return  from  Brunswick,  after  winding 
up  his  affairs,  closing  his  connection  with  the 
Court,  and  arranging  for  the  removal  of  his 
library  to  Switzerland.  In  what  circumstances 
it  was  effected  we  have  seen ;  and  we  have  next 
to  see  in  what  circumstances  acquaintance  ripened 
into  intimacy.  The  story  is  told  in  Benjamin 
Constant's  Diary.^ 

"It  is  truly  curious  to  observe,"  he  writes, 
"  how  women  take  notice  of  the  maddest  actions 
of  men  who  are  interested  in  them,  when  these 
concern  themselves.  It  had  been  agreed  between 
Madame  de  Stael  and  myself  that,  in  order  to 
avoid  compromising  her,  I  should  never  remain 
with  her  after  midnight.  Whatever  the  charm 
which  I  found  in  our  conversations,  and  however 
passionate  my  desire  not  to  let  the  matter  stop 
at  conversation,  I  had  to  submit  to  this  firm 
resolution.  But  this  evening,  the  time  having 
seemed  to  fly  faster  than  usual,  I  pulled  out  my 
watch,  to  demonstrate  that  the  hour  for  my 
departure  had  not  yet  arrived.  But  the  in- 
exorable minute  hand  having  deceived  me,  I  was 
proceeding,  with  a  movement  of  passion  worthy 
^  Not  \ht  Journal  InthnCy  but  the  Carnet,  quoted  by  Sainte-Beuve. 

99 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

of  a  child,  to  smash  on  the  floor  the  instrument 
of  my  discomfiture,  when  Madame  de  Stael 
exclaimed  :  *  What  madness !  How  absurd  you 
are ! '  But  what  an  inward  smile  I  perceived  shining 
through  her  reproaches !  Decidedly  this  broken 
watch  of  mine  is  going  to  do  me  a  great  service." 

And  the  next  day's  entry  is  : — 

"  I  have  not  bought  another  watch.  I  have  no 
longer  any  need  of  one." 

There  is  a  crow  of  triumph  in  the  sentence. 
Benjamin  Constant  believed  himself  to  have  won 
a  victory,  whereas  the  truth  was  that  he  had  let 
himself  be  caught  in  a  net.  Presently  he  was  to 
discover  that ;  but  his  cousin  Rosalie  saw  it  at 
once.  "She  is  stronger  than  he  is,"  she  wrote; 
and  her  letters  are  full  of  her  dislike  of  "  the 
Ambassadress."     For  instance  : — 

"  She  would  die  if  she  had  not  a  crowd  round 
her.  In  the  absence  of  cats  she  would  make 
herself  a  court  of  rats,  and  even  a  court  of  insects 
would  be  better  than  nothing  at  all." 

**  She  is  very  unhappy  with  advantages  which 
would  suffice  to  make  ten  other  people  happy  ; 
but  she  is  passionately  fond  of  Benjamin.  God 
knows  where  their  passion  will  lead  them." 

*'  I  have  seen  my  cousin  de  Stael,  and  my 
cousin  the  shorn  sheep,  two  or  three  times. 
The  day  before  yesterday,  I  called  on  them.  I 
found  her  surrounded  by  the  fox,^  the  little  cat,^ 
and  the  other.^  She  was  resting  one  of  her 
*  M.  de  Tracy.       *  Adrien  de  Meun.       '  Benjamin  Constant. 

100 


What  Rosalie  de  Constant  Thought 

elbows  against  the  chest  of  the  first,  and  toying 
with  the  head  of  the  second,  while  the  third 
stroked  her  neck  and  called  her  his  'dear  little 
kitten.'  The  picture  disgusted  me,  as  did  also  their 
pleasantries  at  the  expense  of  the  Ambassador." 

"  I  have  seen  M.  de  Stael  for  the  first  time, 
and  my  first  impression  of  him  is  that  he  is  more 
agreeable  than  all  his  wife's  lovers.  He  seems 
crushed,  timid,  and  overwhelmed.  Her  manner 
is  haughty  and  contemptuous.  She  speaks  in 
his  presence  of  her  coquetterie  and  her  adoration 
of  Benjamin,  to  whom  she  vows  that  she  will 
devote  her  life." 

And  finally : — 

"  Our  cousin  de  Stael  has  been  in  a  great  state 
of  mind  because  our  uncle  was  unwilling  to  see 
either  her  or  her  son.  She  cannot  understand 
that  a  father  should  be  anything  but  delighted  to 
see  his  son  loved  by  her.  She  speaks  of  him 
quite  openly  as  '  the  man  whom  I  love  best  in 
the  world,  the  man  to  whom  I  cling  with  all  the 
vitality  that  is  left  to  me,'  and  never  suspects  the 
scandal  she  is  causing." 

Madame  de  Stael,  in  truth,  very  seldom  had 
the  fear  of  scandal  before  her  eyes  or  shrank 
from  the  public  advertisement  of  her  attachments. 
It  was  part  of  her  conception  of  love  that  she 
should  openly  use  her  influence  to  advance  the 
interests  of  her  lovers,  who,  on  their  part,  were 
seldom  backward  in  availing  themselves  of  her 
services.  We  have  seen  how,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Revolution,  she  pushed  M.  de  Narbonne  into 

lOI 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

the  office  of  Minister  of  War,  and  how  he  repaid 
her  with  ingratitude.  The  time  was  coming  when 
she  could  be  helpful  in  similar  ways  to  other  friends. 
In  March  1795,  M.  de  Stael  resumed  his 
position  as  Swedish  Ambassador  in  Paris.  In 
May  of  the  same  year  Madame  de  Stael  joined 
him  there,  and  reopened  her  salon,  establishing 
relations  not  only  with  her  old  Royalist  friends, 
but  with  such  prominent  politicians  as  Boissy- 
d'Anglas,  Tallien,  and  Barras.  Her  position, 
however,  was  delicate  and  difficult;  and  her 
manoeuvres  were  hardly  compatible  with  her 
diplomatic  status.  Her  husband  was  insolently 
slapped  on  the  back  by  a  hot  Republican  and 
called  a  "  foreign  spy  " ;  and  she  herself  would 
probably  have  been  expelled  if  she  had  not 
retreated.  A  letter  from  her  father  to  Henri 
Meister,  dated  January  2,  1796,  announces  her 
arrival  at  Coppet,  adding  that  •*  M.  Constant  was 
her  travelling  companion."  She  remained  there, 
or  in  the  neighbourhood,  throughout  that  year 
and  a  portion  of  the  next.  Benjamin  Constant 
was  with  her  most  of  the  time,  and  her  husband, 
his  Embassy  having  been  again  suspended, 
joined  her  late  in  September  1796.  Rosalie  de 
Constant's  letters,  quoted  above,  were  written 
during  this  period.  In  the  spring  of  1797, 
however,  we  find  her  once  more  in  Paris,  after 
stopping  on  the  way  at  Herivaux,  in  Seine- et- 
Oise  (where  Benjamin  Constant  also  stayed),  and 
renewing  her  activities  on  her  friends'  behalf. 

102 


Zeal  for  Talleyrand's  Advancement 

Barras,  in  his  Memoirs,  draws  a  graphic  picture 
of  her  exertions  on  behalf  of  Talleyrand,  the 
perfumed  unbelieving  Bishop,  whose  mistress  he 
declares  her  to  have  been  in  the  days  before  the 
emigration.  "II  faut  faire  marcher  les  femmes  " 
was,  according  to  Barras,  the  Bishop's  motto ; 
and  he  describes  how  Madame  de  Stael  assailed 
him  again  and  again  in  his  Cabinet  with  the 
demand  that  he  should  do  something  for  her 
friend.  She  entered,  he  says,  with  her  hair  and 
her  dress  in  disorder,  threw  herself  into  an  arm- 
chair, seized  him  by  both  hands,  and  dragged  him 
to  a  seat  beside  her,  speaking  breathlessly. 

•'  *  Barras,'  she  exclaimed,  '  Barras,  my  friend, 
you  are  the  only  person  in  the  world  whom  I 
can  rely  upon.  Without  you  we  are  lost — lost 
altogether.  Do  you  know?  But  no,  you  do 
not  know,  or  you  would  not  leave  me  so  cruelly 
embarrassed.  Do  you  know,'  she  continued  in 
a  voice  interrupted  with  sobs,  *  what  he  has  said, 
what  he  just  now  repeated  to  me  ? ' 

"'What  who  said?  What  is  the  matter, 
madame  ? ' 

"  *  Barras,  my  friend,'  she  repeated,  pressing 
my  hands  more  tightly  than  ever,  and  rolling  her 
eyes  like  an  epileptic.  '  My  God,  it  is  of  our 
poor  Talleyrand  that  I  am  speaking  to  you.  Do 
you  know  what  has  just  happened  to  him  ? ' 

"  'What,  madame?' 

"  '  I  have  just  parted  from  him.  Perhaps  he  is 
no  longer  alive.  He  told  me  that  he  would 
throw  himself  into  the  Seine  if  you  did  not  make 

103 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

him  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.     He  has  only 
ten  louis  between  him  and  starvation.' 

** '  But  has  he  no  other  resources  ?  His  friends  ?  ' 
"'His  friends?  I  am  one  of  them  myself. 
I  have  supported  him  up  till  now,  and  have  been 
glad  to  do  it.  But  now  he  has  no  home,  whether 
with  me  or  elsewhere ;  and  when  one  has  no 
ready  money  and '  no  lucrative  profession,  and 
nothing  in  the  world  but  debts,  the  situation  is 
truly  cruel.  We  must  get  him  out  of  it.  My 
dear  Barras,  we  are  lost.  Talleyrand  is  going  to 
drown  himself.  He  is  a  dead  man  if  you  do  not 
make  him  Minister.  If  you  have  absolutely 
disposed  of  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs,  give 
him  another.  He  will  be  equally  suitable  for  it. 
He  is  versatile  ;  he  is  capable  of  everything.' " 

And  so  on  for  many  pages.  Barras  believed, 
or  says  that  he  believed,  that  if  he  had  attached 
"personal  and  sentimental  conditions"  to  the 
advancement  of  Talleyrand,  Madame  de  Stael 
would  have  acceded  to  them  on  the  spot ;  though 
in  the  end,  as  we  know,  the  Bishop  got  his 
preferment  on  his  merits. 

Benjamin  Constant  was  also  introduced  by 
Madame  de  Stael  to  the  Director.  "  I  will  not 
say,"  he  writes,  "  which  of  the  two  brought  the 
other ;  for,  whatever  calumny  may  have  said 
to  the  contrary,  I  protest  here,  to  the  honour 
of  Madame  de  Stael,  that  I  never  really  knew 
to  which  sex  she  belonged."  She  led  Benjamin 
Constant  by  the  hand,  presented  him  as  "a  young 
man  of  prodigious  ability  who  is  on  our  side," 

104 


A  Rising  Politician 

and  the  author  of  a  pamphlet  entitled  De  la 
Force  du  Gouvernement  aduel  de  la  France,  et  de 
la  NdcessiU  de  sy  rallier.  B arras  perceived  his 
talents,  and  he  was,  in  this  way,  launched  in  politics, 
with  a  prospect  of  a  career — albeit  a  career  which, 
for  various  reasons,  never  came  to  very  much. 

The  curious  thing  is,  however,  that  at  the 
very  time  when  Madame  de  Stael  was  so  zealously 
serving  his  interests  Benjamin  Constant  began 
to  feel  his  fetters  gall.  Outwardly  his  life  was 
that  of  a  rising  politician  and  a  young  man 
of  fashion.  He  held  his  own  among  the  mus- 
cadins  and  incroyables  of  the  Directorate — those 
elegant  dandies  who  lorded  it  in  the  streets  and 
salons,  now  that  the  reign  of  sans-culottism  was 
over.  But  these  externals  did  not  faithfully 
reflect  his  inner  life,  of  which  we  get  two  striking 
glimpses  in  two  interesting  letters  written  to  his 
aunt,  Madame  de  Nassau.  The  first  letter  is 
written  from  H^rivaux  on  May  i8,  1797,  and 
the  essential  passages  are  as  follows : — 

**  I  write  to  you,  my  dear  aunt,  from  the  pro- 
foundest  solitude,  in  the  midst  of  my  forests,  and 
with  the  feeling  that  nothing  but  a  greater 
stability  in  my  situation  is  required  to  make  me 
tolerably  happy.  I  write  to  ask  you  if  you  can 
help  me  to  supply  that  need.  A  tie  to  which 
I  cling  from  a  sense  of  duty,  or,  if  you  will  have 
it  so,  from  weakness — but  to  which  I  feel  sure 
that  I  shall  continue  to  hold  fast  until  a  more 
real  duty  emancipates  me  from  it,  since  I  cannot 
break  it  without  confessing  that    I   am   tired  of 

105 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

it,  which  I  am  too  polite  to  do — a  tie  which 
plunges  me  into  a  world  which  I  have  ceased  to 
care  for,  drags  me  away  from  the  country  which 
I  love,  makes  me  profoundly  unhappy,  and  can 
only  be  broken  by  a  shock  which  I  feel  myself 
incapable  of  giving  it :  such  a  tie,  I  say,  has  held 
me  enchained  for  the  last  two  years. 

"  I  am  isolated  without  being  independent, 
subjugated  without  being  united.  I  see  the  last 
years  of  my  life  slipping  away  without  either  the 
repose  of  solitude  or  the  amenities  of  legitimate 
affection.  It  is  in  vain  that  I  have  tried  to  break 
my  bonds.  My  character  is  such  that  I  cannot 
resist  the  complainings  of  another  by  the  opposi- 
tion of  my  will,  especially  when  it  is  possible  for 
me  to  postpone  my  emancipation  from  hour  to 
hour  without  distressing  inconvenience.  In  this 
way  I  wear  myself  out  in  a  position  unfavourable 
to  my  tastes,  to  the  occupations  which  I  prefer, 
and  to  the  tranquillity  of  my  life.  Besides, 
supposing  the  tie  broken,  I  shall  only  find  myself 
in  a  solitude  which  will  intensify  the  picture  of 
the  pain,  real  or  imaginary,  which  I  shall  be  told 
that  I  have  caused.  To  console  myself  for  this 
I  must  at  least  make  someone  happy. 

"  Do  you  guess,  my  dear  aunt,  to  what  I  am 
working  up  ?  To  a  project  which  I  have  had 
in  my  mind  for  the  last  year — about  which  I  have 
written  you  twenty  letters  (though  I  have  torn 
them  all  up).  In  a  word,  I  am  going  to  ask  you 
to  find  me  a  wife.  I  want  one  in  order  to  be 
happy.  And,  in  order  that  I  may  feel  for  her 
beforehand  every  sentiment  of  friendship,  I  want 
her  to  come  to  me  from  you.  ...  I  should  like 
her  to  have  a  little  fortune ;  and  as  for  herself, 

io6 


Revolt  and  Reconquest 

I  would  rather  that  she  were  Genevese  than  Swiss, 
because  it  would  suit  me,  newly  naturalised  as 
a  Frenchman,  to  marry  a  Frenchwoman.  Let 
her  be  not  more  than  sixteen,  tolerably  pretty, 
without  any  conspicuous  defect,  of  simple  and 
orderly  habits,  capable  of  supporting  life  in 
solitary  retirement,  reasonable  enough  to  be 
willing  to  live  eight  leagues  from  Paris  and  go 
there  but  seldom.  As  for  her  character — I  leave 
that  to  you.    As  for  wit — I  am  sick  and  tired  of  it." 

This  is  the  first  sign  of  revolt ;  and  it  seems 
to  have  been  the  fate  of  Madame  de  Stael  first 
to  conquer  men  with  her  wit,  and  then  to  weary 
them  with  it.  Again  and  again  we  shall  see 
how  Benjamin  Constant  found  her  vivacity  over- 
whelming, and  how  it  made  him  long  for  the 
quiet  domesticities  for  which,  at  bottom,  he  was 
not  less  unfit  than  for  the  life  of  high-strung 
nervous  tension.  This  time,  however,  the  revolt 
was  quickly  followed  by  reconquest ;  and  in  a  letter 
dated  July  i,  1797,  we  see  him  retracting. 

"You  wish,  then,  most  amiable  of  aunts,  that 
your  nephew  should  remain  a  celibate.  Your  will 
be  done !  I  resign  myself  thereto  because  my 
legitimate  sovereign  has  returned,  and  my  project 
of  insurrection  is  abandoned.  To  speak  seriously, 
I  have  received  fresh  and  so  great  proofs  of  the 
devotion  of  the  person  in  question — to  whom  I 
thought  it  better,  for  the  moment,  both  for  her 
sake  and  for  my  own,  to  appear  less  attached — 
that  I  could  not  without  displaying  the  most 
lively  ingratitude,  or  without  laying  up  for  myself 

107 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

a  store  of  bitter  regrets  in  the  future,  think  of 
doing  anything  whatever  that  would  be  painful 
to  her.  I  beg  and  entreat  you,  therefore,  my 
dear  aunt,  to  forget  the  portion  of  my  letter 
bearing  on  that  subject,  and,  above  all,  to  show 
it  to  no  one,  and  to  remember  only  those  passages 
of  it  which  relate  to  my  sentiments  towards 
yourself." 

What,  then,  we  have  to  inquire,  had  happened 
between  these  two  letters,  accounting  for  the 
quick  revulsion  of  sentiment.-*  Nothing  less,  we 
find,  than  that  Madame  de  Stael,  rushing  through 
life  like  a  whirlwind,  and  insisting  upon  her  share 
of  all  emotions  and  all  experiences,  had  found 
time  to  bear  yet  another  child — Albertine  de 
Stael,  afterwards  to  be  known  as  Duchesse  de 
Broglie,  and  one  of  the  great  Protestant  ladies 
of  France.  Nothing  is  more  clear  than  that 
Benjamin  Constant  believed  that  he,  and  not 
M.  de  Stael — who  had  so  long  been  absent  from 
his  wife  and  was  so  soon  to  divorce  her — was 
the  child's  father.  The  proof  in  these  letters 
would  almost  suffice  by  itself,  and  it  does  not 
stand  alone.  Other  proofs,  not  less  eloquent, 
will  greet  us,  when  the  time  comes  to  turn  over 
the  pages  of  that  Journal  Intime  in  which 
Benjamin  Constant  wrote  his  secret  thoughts 
in  cipher,  and  in  which  the  lonely  man's  cry 
for  the  "dear  Albertine"  whom  he  loves,  and 
whom  he  would  like  to  have  with  him  always, 
recurs  and  recurs  like  a  refrain. 

1 08 


CHAPTER  X 

M.  and  Madame  de  Stael  separate — ^The  alleged  "duel"  with 
Napoleon — Publication  of  De  la  Litterature — Death  of  M.  de 
Stael — Why  Madame  de  Stael  did  not  then  marry  Benjamin. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1798  that  M.  de  Stael 
definitely  separated  from  his  wife.  The  few 
years  that  remained  to  him  were  chiefly  given  to 
gambling,  prodigality,  and  the  heaping  up  of 
debts.  Madame  de  Stael,  during  the  same 
period,  was  perpetually  passing  to  and  fro 
between  Paris  and  Coppet,  with  Benjamin 
Constant  often,  but  not  always,  in  her  company. 
She  had  written  (before  Byron)  that  love  was 
woman's  whole  existence ;  but  her  aphorism  was 
only  true  of  herself  at  the  hours  of  agitation  when 
love  had  just  departed  or  was  threatening  to 
depart.  When  love  was  secure,  it  was  an 
episode  to  be  "  classed,"  and  indulged  con- 
currently with  others.  It  seemed  secure  at  this 
stage  ;  and  the  magnet  which  obviously  drew  her 
was  her  ambition  to  shine  in  literature,  in  society, 
and  in  politics. 

The  politics  of  the  period  we  must  largely  take 
for  granted.  They  are  very  complicated ;  and 
Madame  de  Stael's  connection  with  them  was 
rather   that   of  an   impetuous   partisan   than   an 

109 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

effective  force.  Her  salon  might  be  a  centre  of 
intrigue  and  a  source  of  apprehension,  but  her 
practical  influence  has  been  exaggerated.  She 
could  do  a  great  deal  to  advance  individuals,  but 
very  little  to  direct  events.  Her  proUgds  did 
not  remain  in  leading  strings.  Talleyrand  in 
particular  did  not,  but  easily  accommodated  him- 
self to  the  new  conditions  which  she  resisted. 
Even  Benjamin  Constant  was  comparatively  in 
favour  with  the  powers  which  she  displeased. 
She  always  had  the  air  of  being  dangerous  ;  but 
circumstances  were  too  strong  for  her,  and  she 
never  actually  became  so. 

On  one  occasion  she  achieved  a  great  personal 
triumph — when  the  French,  in  1798,  invaded  the 
Canton  of  Vaud,  to  liberate  its  citizens  from  the 
yoke  of  the  Bernese,  who  had  subjugated  the 
country  in  1536,  and  treated  it  as  a  dependency 
ever  since.  Coppet  was  on  the  line  of  march, 
and  Necker,  in  great  alarm,  destroyed  letters 
and  other  papers  which  he  feared  would  be  com- 
promising. Thanks  to  his  daughter's  influence, 
however,  he  was  assured  of  the  protection  of  the 
French  Republic,  and  his  name  was  erased  from 
the  list  of  proscribed  dmigr^s.  Twenty  officers 
were  entertained  by  Madame  de  Stael  at  Coppet. 
They  behaved  with  absolute  correctitude,  and 
everything  passed  off  well. 

With  the  rise  of  Napoleon,  however, 
Madame  de  Stael's  influence  began  to  decline. 
Her  admirers  are  fond  of  speaking  of  her  "long 

no 


The  *'  Long  Duel "  with  Napoleon 

duel"  with   the   Emperor;   but  here  again   one 
scents  exaggeration.     The  idea  of  a  long  duel 
suggests    some    sort    of    equality   between    the 
combatants,  and  some  similarity  in  the  weapons 
used.     Those     conditions    were    wanting  —  and 
were    bound     to     be    wanting  —  in     this    case. 
Madame  de   Stael    was   only  one   among   many 
obstacles  that  the  strong  man  swept  out  of  his 
path  in  order  that  he  might  get  on  with  the  work 
which   he    had    appointed    himself   to    do.     He 
could   not   have    salons    intriguing   against   him 
when  he  was  restoring  order  after  a  long  period 
of  confusion.     She  must  support  him  or  take  the 
consequences.     The   alternative   was   offered   to 
her  almost  in  so  many  words,  and  she  was  found 
defiant.     The  consequence  was  an  injunction  to 
remove  to  a  distance  of  forty  leagues  from  Paris. 
She  continued  her  defiance,  making  the  welkin 
ring  with  her  protestations,  tried  to  make  herself 
a  figure  not  less  conspicuous  than  her  enemy  in 
the  eyes  of  Europe,  and  so  brought  down  further 
persecution  on   her  head.     But  she  was  rather 
a   victim   who   could   not    be    silenced   than   an 
antagonist  to  be  reckoned  with.     Napoleon  no 
doubt   treated   her  very  badly,  esteeming  her  a 
troublesome   termagant.     But  he   rather  bullied 
than  fought  her,  and  to  speak  of  their  "  duel "  is 
a  misuse  of  language. 

This,  however,  is  to  travel  somewhat  beyond 
the  scope  of  the  present  volume.  The  ten  years 
of  exile  in  which  the  centre  of  Madame  de  Stael's 

III 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

interest  in  life  was  to  be  emotional  rather  than 
political  had  not  yet  begun,  and  the  course  of 
certain  intervening  events  must  be  traced  before 
we  come  to  them. 

Of  her  intimate  relations  with  Benjamin 
Constant  there  is  hardly  any  mention  in  her 
letters,  and  very  little  in  his.  We  note,  however, 
that  the  maintenance  of  the  liaison  is  estranging 
him  from  his  excellent  aunt,  Madame  de  Nassau. 
In  letter  after  letter  he  protests  against  her  cold- 
ness to  him,  which  he  attributes  to  this  cause. 
At  the  same  time,  in  his  letters  to  his  cousin 
Rosalie,  we  find  indications  that  his  thoughts  are 
beginning  to  stray  occasionally  from  her  whom  he 
has  called  his  legitimate  sovereign.  An  interest 
revives  in  the  Charlottechen  whom  we  have  already 
met,  and  whom  we  are  to  encounter  yet  again. 

**  I  should  like  to  know,"  he  asks,  "what  has 
become  of  a  Madame  de  Marenholz  or  de 
Hardenberg,  who  must  be  thirty-one  years  of 
age,  and  if  Victor  has  seen  her.  Do  not  tell  me 
where,  but  only  tell  me  whether  he  has  seen  her, 
and  whether  she  spoke  to  him  of  me."  Having 
received  the  news  he  seeks,  he  writes  :  "  I  was 
very  much  interested  by  what  you  told  me 
concerning  a  lady  who  interested  me  exceedingly 
in  days  gone  by.  I  should  indeed  be  frivolous 
and  unfeeling  if  seven  short  years  sufficed  to  make 
me  forget  in  that  way  one  who  is  only  five-and- 
twenty  leagues  away  from  me."  Trifling  words, 
but     perhaps     symptomatic     of    a    good     deal. 

112 


Publication  of  De  la  Litterature 

Charlotte  always  figures  in  Benjamin  Constant's 
life  as  the  woman  to  whom  his  heart  turns 
instinctively  when  he  is  weary  of  emotions  and 
agitations.  Evidently  he  is  feeling  that  weariness 
now ;  for  he  proceeds,  with  a  reference  to 
Madame  de  Stael :  '*  The  fair  lady  who  lately 
arrived  from  Geneva  lives  in  a  whirlwind  of  balls, 
fetes,  and  evening  parties.  Sometimes  she  drags 
me  with  her  to  them,  but  more  often  I  make  my 
escape." 

Madame  de  Stael's  life,  indeed,  at  this  juncture 
was  a  rush  with  which  no  man  enamoured  of 
tranquillity  could  well  keep  pace.  To  all  appear- 
ance her  social  duties  filled  her  days  and  nights. 
No  social  gathering  was  complete  without  her, 
and  she  had  a  finger  in  every  political  pie.  But 
she  was,  at  the  same  time,  not  less  busy  with 
literary  work.  She  was  collecting  material  for 
her  first  novel,  Delphine  —  writing  to  Henri 
Meister  for  information  which  she  required  for  it ; 
and  in  1800  appeared  her  essay,  De  la  LitUrahire 
considdr'ee  dans  ses  Rapports  avec  les  Instittdions 
sociales. 

It  is  not  a  work  which  we  need  pause  to 
criticise  with  any  care.  The  dust  which  has 
accumulated  upon  it  in  the  bookcase  is  in  itself 
no  inconsiderable  criticism.  It  is  taken  down 
from  the  shelf  not  by  those  who  are  interested  in 
the  subject,  but  by  those  who  are  interested  in 
the  author.  Literature  is  the  peg  on  which  the 
writer  hangs  her  opinions  about  things  in  general ; 
H  113 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

a  discourse  on  literature  is  the  medium  through 
which  she  expresses  an  ebulHent  personality. 
She  declares  for  the  perfectibility  of  human 
nature — a  belief  which,  wherever  we  find  it,  is 
always  an  emotion  rather  than  a  reasoned 
conviction,  common  to  those  who  feel  good,  but 
frame  their  own  moral  laws  as  they  go  along. 
She  alternates  flat-footed  platitudes  with  brilliant 
intuitions,  not  recognising  the  difference  between 
the  two  things,  but  being  inspired  by  fits  and 
starts.  She  foresees  Caesarism  as  the  deplorable 
end  of  the  Republic,  and  so,  of  course,  increases 
the  sum  of  her  offences  against  the  Caesar  that  is 
to  be.  Napoleon  sent  his  brother  to  warn  her, 
but  the  warning  fell  upon  deaf  ears ;  for  she  had 
all  her  father's  pride,  and  more  than  her  father's 
obstinacy,  and  was  accustomed  to  pull  wires  and 
get  her  way. 

The  book  had  been  out  about  two  years — had 
made  an  immense  stir  and  got  into  a  second 
edition — had  been  the  centre  of  a  controversy  in 
which  Chateaubriand  among  others  took  a  hand 
— when  the  death  of  M.  de  Stael  gave  his  wife 
her  freedom.  He  had  been  ill,  and  she  had 
returned  to  him  in  circumstances  about  which 
very  little  can  be  said  because  very  little  is 
known.  Certainly  there  is  nothing  to  indicate 
that  the  return  implied  repentance  for  acts  of 
infidelity.  It  was  impossible  for  Madame  de 
Stael  to  repent  of  anything,  because  it  was  im- 
possible to  her  to  believe  that  anything  that  she 

114 


Death  of  M.  de  Stael 

did  was  wrong.  She  anticipated  George  Sand  in 
confusing  the  call  of  desire  with  the  voice  of  con- 
science, and,  as  has  been  said  above,  in  "feeling 
good "  because  of  her  loyalty  to  the  moral 
standards  which  her  inclination  improvised.  She 
had,  at  the  same  time,  however,  irresistible  im- 
pulses of  pity,  and  an  imperturbable  conviction 
of  the  consoling  value  of  her  presence  to  the  dis- 
tressed. We  do  not  know  whether  M.  de  Stael 
desired  her  to  be  with  him  in  his  illness  or  not. 
Perhaps  he  did ;  for  he  seems  to  have  been  a 
weak  man  and  not  proud.  Perhaps — but  the 
speculation  is  idle.  His  wife  was  at  any  rate 
quite  sure  that  she  was  wanted.  Capable  of  all 
the  emotions  in  turn,  she  felt  them  all  intensely 
at  their  several  hours.  Connubial  emotion  was  to 
have  its  turn  with  the  rest.  One  can  almost  see 
her  possessed  by  it,  and  hear  her  exclaiming, 
"  My  place  is  by  his  side." 

She  joined  him,  and  was  taking  him  to  Coppet, 
whence  he  was  to  travel  to  Aix-les-Bains,  to  take 
the  waters,  when  he  died  at  Poligny  of  an 
apoplectic  stroke.  * '  All  those, "  says  the  Publiciste, 
"  who  knew  M.  de  Stael,  know  how  well  he 
merited,  by  the  gentleness  of  his  manners  and  the 
natural  goodness  of  his  disposition,  the  affection, 
esteem,  and  regrets  of  his  family  and  his  friends." 
"  You  have  heard  of  my  trouble,"  writes  his  wife  to 
Meister,  and  then  passes  on  to  other  subjects. 
Benjamin  Constant,  on  the  date  of  his  death,  the 
news  of  which  had  not  yet  reached  him,  wrote  to 

IIS 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

his  friend  Fauriel :  ^  "  Perhaps  happiness  is  impos- 
sible to  me,  as  I  cannot  enjoy  it  with  the  best 
and  cleverest  of  women." 

In  due  course,  however,  the  news  reached  him. 
He  joined  the  best  and  cleverest  of  women  at 
Coppet,  and  the  question  came  up  for  discussion 
whether  they  should  avail  themselves  of  their 
freedom  to  get  married.  That  the  question  was 
answered  in  the  negative  we  know,  though  why 
or  by  which  of  them  it  was  so  answered  is  not  so 
clear.  The  general  belief  is  that  Benjamin 
Constant  made  an  offer  of  marriage  which  Madame 
de  Stael  declined ;  and  the  theory  is  borne  out  by 
a  sentence  which  we  find  written,  seven  years 
later,  in  his  Diary :  "  I  am  between  two  women, 
one  of  whom  did  me  a  wrong  by  refusing  to 
marry  me,  while  the  other  is  about  to  inflict  an 
injury  on  me  by  doing  so."  The  statement  has 
also  been  made  that  Madame  de  Stael  agreed  to 
the  offer,  but  imposed  an  unacceptable  condition — 
that  she  should  retain  her  own  name,  which  she 
had  made  illustrious.  She  did  not  want,  she  said, 
"to  put  Europe  off  the  track — ddsorienter 
f  Europe.'' 

Very  likely  she  did  not.  The  entanglement 
was  such  that  there  may  well  be  several  explana- 
tions of  the  solution  found  for  it,  each  with  its 
element  of  truth.      Probably,  however,  we  come 

^  A  politician,  principally  famous  for  the  rapidity  with  which  he 
resigned  the  various  offices  which  he  held,  and  subsequently  of 
some  eminence  as  an  historian. 

ii6 


A  "  Distressing "  Situation 

nearest  to  absolute  truth  in  the  letters  of  Rosalie 
de  Constant,  who  expected  the  marrriage,  and  was 
sincerely  disappointed  that  it  did  not  take  place. 

Rosalie  had  considered  the  question  as  far  back 
as  1 796,  when  there  was  talk  of  a  divorce,  but  had 
doubted,  rightly,  as  it  proved,  whether  Madame 
de  Stael  would  have  the  nerve  to  seek  that 
scandalous  solution  of  the  problem.  "  It  is  much 
simpler  for  her,"  she  wrote,  "  to  continue  to  live 
as  she  is  living  now."  She  deplored,  however, 
Benjamin's  undignified  position  as  *'  cavalier  per- 
petually in  attendance."  He  was  too  clever,  and 
too  important,  she  thought,  for  that ;  and  she 
describes  the  situation  as  "  distressing "  to  his 
friends.  She  believes,  however,  that  it  is  a  situa- 
tion which  M.  de  Stael's  death  must  necessarily 
terminate.  "Benjamin,"  she  writes,  "is  coming 
to  Coppet.  Everybody  is  putting  forward  reasons 
against  their  marriage.  It  seems  to  me  that  it 
cannot  fail  to  take  place." 

That  was  in  May  1802.  In  July  Rosalie  is  not 
so  confident.  Benjamin  has,  in  the  meantime,  been 
on  a  visit  to  her,  and  she  reports  :  "His  character 
is  like  that  of  a  wayward  child,  who  always  acts 
on  the  impulse  of  the  moment  and  can  never  be 
depended  upon.  He  seemed  to  me  to  be  very 
much  frightened  by  the  idea  of  the  marriage  which 
I  thought  so  certain."  At  the  beginning  of 
September  she  visits  Coppet,  and  finds  that 
matters  have  made  no  progress,  though  Benjamin 
is    "doing    the   honours"  of  the   establishment. 

117 


Madame  de  Stael  and   Her  Lovers 

"  His  position  here  is  very  curious.  He  pays  his 
court  to  no  one,  has  everything  at  his  command, 
and  grumbles  from  time  to  time  like  a  spoilt  child." 
Not  until  August  1804  does  she  show  that  she 
has  received  confidences  which  enable  her  to 
understand  the  situation  ;  but  then  she  writes  : — 

"It  seemed  to  me  such  a  natural  thing  for  her 
to  marry  Benjamin  when  she  was  free  that  no 
doubt  of  her  doing  so  occurred  to  me.  It  appears 
that  they  were  both  so  afraid  of  the  step  that  they 
came  to  an  arrangement.  She  had  other  lovers, 
and  he  had  a  constant  desire  to  run  after  other 
women  ;  but  their  intellects  unite  them.  No  other 
man  offers  her  such  intellectual  resources  as  his. 
She  is  absolutely  determined  to  maintain  her  hold 
over  him,  and  keeps  him  by  her  side,  now  by 
habit,  now  by  tyranny,  and  now  by  requiring 
services  from  him.     He  remains,  but  murmurs." 

This  was  her  statement  to  her  brother  Charles. 
Another  interesting  letter,  written  to  Madame  de 
Stael  herself,  of  which  only  a  tattered  fragment 
remains,  contains  this  notable  passage  : — 

"  Ah !  how  much  I  should  have  loved  you  if 
you  had  married  Benjamin  and  made  him  happy. 
What  would  I  not  then  have  done  to  deserve  a 
little  friendship  from  you  !  The  identity  of  your 
feelings  in  the  matter  imposes  silence  upon  my 
thoughts  and  words,  but  I  look  back  with  regret 
upon  the  wishes  which  I  used  to  form." 

Reading  these  scraps,  and  reading  also  Madame 
de  Stael's  statement,  made  several  years  after- 
wards, that  Benjamin  did  propose  marriage  to  her, 

118 


Letting  Things  Drift 

but  with  the  manner  of  a  man  discharging  a  duty 
and  hoping  to  be  refused,  we  cannot  be  in  much 
doubt  as  to  what  happened.  Everything  happened 
that  could  happen.  The  subject  was  discussed 
in  all  its  bearings,  and  approached  in  different 
moods  on  different  days.  Everything  was  said, 
in  one  mood  or  another,  that  could  imaginably  be 
said ;  and  every  loophole  was  left  for  every 
possible  reproach.  The  bed-rock  fact  was  that 
the  lovers  could  not  be  happy  either  together  or 
apart.  They  had  discovered  this  already,  and 
were  to  rediscover  it  many  times  before  the  end. 
Meanwhile  they  compromised,  and  continued  to 
compromise,  and  let  things  drift. 

Benjamin  Constant's  relatives  thought  that,  if 
he  was  not  to  marry  Madame  de  Stael,  he  had 
better  marry  someone  else — no  matter  whom,  pro- 
vided that  the  match  were  "  suitable."  In  spite  of 
experience,  they  doubtless  clung  to  the  notion 
that,  if  he  married,  he  would  "settle  down." 
Living,  for  a  time,  in  close  retirement  and  great 
solitude,  in  his  small  country  seat  in  France,  he 
toyed  with  the  idea.  Rosalie  had  pointed  out  to 
him  that  a  certain  young  lady  at  Geneva  was  very 
eligible.  "  I  think  of  her,"  he  replies,  "  with 
tenderness,  and  among  the  vague  ideas  which 
charm  my  retreat  I  give  her  recollection  the  first 
place."  But  the  idea  remains  vague,  and  must 
remain  so,  for  good  reasons. 

"  Consideration  for  a  person  who,  though  she  has 
119 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

more  drawbacks  than  this  lady,  has  also  much  more 
real  and  much  higher  merit,  controls  me  to-day  as 
it  has  always  controlled  me.  Nothing  would  be 
more  unendurable  to  me  than  that  this  person 
should  be  unhappy  or  should  suffer,  and  I  should 
think  no  sacrifice  too  great  to  avoid  being  the 
cause  of  her  unhappiness.  Give  me  a  few  letters 
about  her  too.  Your  letters  shall  be  scrupulously 
burnt,  and  you  shall  not  be  compromised  in  any 
way." 

That  is  the  real  and  invincible  reason.  He 
mentions  others — that  he  has  vowed  himself  to  a 
solitary  life  with  which  the  lady  whose  heart  and 
hand  are  proposed  to  him  would  be  bored ;  that 
her  desire  is  to  be  married  anyhow,  and  not  to  be 
married  to  him  in  particular ;  and  that  this  desire, 
"  though  perfectly  legitimate,  is  not  very  flattering 
to  the  bridegroom."  But  having  given  these 
reasons,  he  soon  harks  back  to  the  thought  that  is 
uppermost  in  his  mind.  Estranged  from  Madame 
de  Stael,  he  pleads  for  news  of  her. 

"  I  know,  my  dear  Rosalie,  how  you  dislike 
speaking  to  me  of  a  person  interesting  to  both  of 
us,  whose  qualities  and  defects  are  sometimes  the 
charm  and  sometimes  the  torment  of  my  life.  I 
am  going  nevertheless  to  ask  you  to  conquer  this 
repugnance.  I  claim  that  from  your  friendship 
for  me.  It  is  perhaps  the  most  important  service 
that  you  could  render  me  at  the  most  important 
crisis  of  my  fate. 

"  You  can  depend  upon  it  that,  two  minutes 
after  your  letters  have  been  read,  they  shall  be 

1 20 


A  Strange  Letter 

burnt,  and  your  name  shall  not  be  so  much  as 
mentioned.  Besides,  it  is  not  that  I  want  to  have 
an  explanation  with  her  or  to  justify  myself  in 
anybody's  eyes.  It  is  for  my  own  satisfaction 
alone  that  I  should  like  to  be  informed — because 
I  am  unhappy  about  the  unhappiness  of  which 
I  am  told  that  I  am  the  cause,  and  because,  if  I 
could  be  assured  that  this  unhappiness  has  ceased, 
and  above  all  that  another  object  of  interest  dis- 
tracts her  at  the  moment  when  her  distress  is 
depicted  to  me  in  the  most  painful  colours — my 
calm  would  return  to  me,  the  remorse  which 
I  feel,  and  which  tortures  me,  would  cease,  and  I 
should  be  able  to  continue  in  my  freedom  without 
having  my  plans  and  my  life  upset  any  more  by 
the  supernatural  influence  of  her  voice  and  her 
letters,  and  her  assurance  that  she  cannot  live 
without  me,  and  that  I  make  her  suffer." 

It  is  the  letter  of  a  man  who  has  lost  his  way 
in  life,  and  it  reads  the  more  strangely  when  we 
know  that  Benjamin  Constant  was  in  regular  cor- 
respondence with  Madame  de  Stael  at  the  time 
when  it  was  written,  and  find  him  insisting  that 
his  letters  to  Rosalie  must  on  no  account  be 
shown  to  her.  "  I  always  write  to  her,"  he  says, 
"  with  great  consideration  for  her  feelings,  only 
laying  before  her  such  of  my  sentiments  as  can 
cause  her  pleasure.  I  tell  her  nothing  that  is 
untrue,  but  I  do  not  tell  her  all  the  truth.  Con- 
sequently, whereas  she  complains  at  present  of 
the  indifference  of  my  letters,  she  would  be  indig- 
nant at  their  perfidy  if  she  saw  this  one,  and  a 

121 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

thing  would  happen  to  me  which  has  happened  a 
hundred  times  before,  and  will,  I  think,  always 
happen  :  I  should  be  condemned  for  the  good 
which  I  desired  to  do,  and  the  pain  which  I  was 
anxious  to  avoid  giving."  He  cannot,  however, 
he  continues,  remain  any  longer  the  amant  en 
titre  of  a  woman  whom  he  is  not  going  to  marr)' ; 
and  he  concludes  : — 

"You  alone  have  done  me  a  little  good.  You 
alone  have  given  me  the  strength  to  resist  a 
torrent  to  which  I  had  been  painfully  yielding  for 
years.  If  I  were  not  confident  that  you  would 
approve  of  my  conduct,  I  should  suffer  much  more 
than  I  do." 

But  if  Benjamin  Constant  believed  that  he 
could  resist  the  torrent  for  more  than  a  few  weeks, 
he  had  misjudged  his  strength,  as  we  are  now 
about  to  see. 


122 


CHAPTER   XI 

Publication  of  Delphine — A  ro7nan-d-cle/ — Necker  writes  a 
novel — Social  life  at  Coppet — And  at  Geneva — Correspond- 
ence with  Camille  Jordan — He  refuses  to  travel  with  Madame 
de  Stael  in  Italy — She  goes  to  Germany  with  Benjamin  Con- 
stant instead. 

Delphine  was  published  about  six  months  after 
M.  de  Stael's  death,  in  November  1803.  It  is 
long — very  long — a  great  deal  too  long  for  modern 
tastes.  The  story  is  told  in  letters,  and  there  are 
218  of  them,  covering  698  pages  of  small  print. 
The  readers  who  do  not  read  the  book  are  nowa- 
days in  the  majority,  even  in  France.  Times 
change,  and  our  tastes  change  with  them.  It  made 
a  great  stir  at  its  hour,  however  ;  partly  because  it 
was  by  Madame  de  Stael,  who  could  not  do  so  much 
as  cross  the  room  without  making  a  stir ;  partly 
because  of  the  allegation  that  it  attacked  morality. 
Into  the  moral  side  of  the  question  we  need  not 
enter.  In  polemics  morality  is  seldom  clearly  dis- 
tinguished from  the  conventional  hypocrisies  of  a 
period.  The  distinction  was  certainly  too  subtle 
for  Madame  de  Genlis,  who  was  Madame  de 
Stael's  principal  assailant ;  and  the  interest  which 
it  is  still  possible  to  take  in  the  novel  in  no  way 
depends  upon  the  views  which  it  expresses  by 
implication   upon   such    matters   as   divorce   and 

123 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

suicide.  We  must  read  it,  in  the  first  instance,  as 
a  roman-a-clef,  and  in  the  second  place  as  a 
mirror  of  the  writer's  mind. 

Several  of  the  characters  are  drawn  from  well- 
known  people.  The  domesticated  Madame  de 
Cerlebe  is  no  other  than  the  author's  cousin, 
Madame  Necker  de  Saussure.  The  original  of 
M.  de  Lebensei — "  the  most  remarkably  brilliant 
man  whom  one  could  conceivably  encounter" — is 
as  obviously  Benjamin  Constant.  Talleyrand 
was  another  of  her  models,  and  he  knew  it.  '*  I 
hear,"  he  said  to  her,  "that  you  have  put  both 
me  and  yourself  into  your  romance — and  that  we 
are  both  disguised  as  women."  He  indeed  ad- 
mittedly figured  in  it  as  Madame  de  Vernon,  so 
seductively  amiable  in  her  manners,  yet  at  heart 
so  unscrupulously  selfish.  It  was  the  novelist's 
revenge  upon  the  Bishop,  whose  motto  had  been 
"II  faut  faire  marcher  les  femmes," — who  had 
made  use  of  her  when  he  was  friendless,  but  had 
dropped  her  when  her  intimacy  seemed  likely  to 
compromise  him  in  Napoleon's  eyes.  And  she  is, 
of  course,  herself  Delphine.  If  she  is  not  dis- 
guised as  a  woman,  she  does  at  least  appear  in 
the  disguise  of  youth  and  beauty. 

The  novel  is  not,  however,  like  Benjamin 
Constant's  Adolpke,  a  veiled  autobiography. 
Nothing  had  happened  in  the  author's  own  life 
corresponding  to  the  sensational  incidents  related. 
The  correspondence  is  only  on  the  plane  of 
thought    and    feeling;    and    it    was    solely    this 

124 


Personal  Sentiments  in  Delphine 

correspondence  that  Madame  Necker  de  Saussure 
had  in  her  mind  when  she  wrote  that  "  Corinne 
is  the  ideal  Madame  de  Stael ;  Delphine  is  the 
real  woman  as  she  was  in  the  days  of  her  youth." 
The  antithesis  is  perhaps  a  little  forced  ;  but  it  is 
at  any  rate  true  that  Madame  de  Stael  put  a  great 
deal  of  herself  into  Delphiney  and  that  we  can 
trace  through  it  not  only  the  sentiments  on  which 
she  lived,  but  also  the  marks  of  the  sentimental 
experiences  which  she  had  undergone. 

She  is  crying  for  happiness  throughout  the  book, 
almost  as  a  child  cries  for  the  moon.  Happiness 
in  marriage  is  the  ideal — but  it  is  so  hard,  so  rare, 
and  "  fate  has  decided  against  a  woman  from  the 
day  on  which  she  marries  a  man  whom  she  does 
not  love."  There  is  nothing  for  her  but  "  to  ex- 
tinguish her  sentiments  and  let  her  heart  dry  up." 
But  that  too  is  hard,  even  for  a  woman  whom 
beauty  has  not  favoured :  "  Many  men  have  en- 
nobled a  natural  ugliness  by  the  laurels  which 
they  have  gained,  but  love  is  women's  whole 
existence  ;  the  story  of  their  lives  begins  and  ends 
with  love."  It  is  a  sentiment  which  we  have  met 
before  in  the  Essay  on  the  Influence  of  the  Passions  ; 
and  it  seems  to  lead  us  at  least  half-way  to  Madame 
de  Stael's  second  ideal — her//5  aller — happiness  in 
love,  without  reference  to  marriage.  Corinne,  pub- 
lished four  years  later,  is  its  formal  manifesto  ;  but 
already,  in  Delphine,  it  appears  to  be  foreshadowed, 
and  already,  as  we  know,  Madame  de  Stael  had, 
in   practice,   inclined  to  the  pursuit   of  it.     We 

125 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

seem   to  read  the  record  of  experience  in   this 
reflection  : — 

"In  general,  I  think,  a  man  whose  character  Is 
cold  easily  wins  the  love  of  a  woman  whose  heart 
is  passionate.  He  captivates  and  holds  your 
interest  by  making  you  believe  in  a  secret  which 
he  does  not  express ;  while  his  lack  of  self- 
abandonment  arouses,  for  the  moment  at  least, 
a  woman's  anxious  and  impressionable  tempera- 
ment. Liaisons  so  formed  are  not  perhaps  the 
happiest  and  the  most  durable,  but  they  have 
the  more  power  to  agitate  the  soul  that  is  weak 
enough  to  yield  to  them." 

Such  sentiments  are  only  written  down  by 
women  who  have  discovered  them  to  be  true ; 
and  we  know  who  had  taught  them  to  Madame 
de  Stael.  Probably  General  Guibert  in  the  first 
instance  ;  certainly  M.  de.  Narbonne  in  the  second; 
possibly  Talleyrand  in  the  third ;  unquestionably 
Benjamin  Constant  in  the  fourth.  Not  one  of 
them  belonged  to  the  category  of  men  who  gush. 
Each  of  them  in  turn,  in  his  relations  with  Madame 
de  Stael,  had  seemed  to  wear  a  mask  of  indiffer- 
ence, to  remove  it,  and  to  resume  it.  Sometimes  it 
had  been  her  fate  to  tear  off  the  mask  violently 
and  find  that  indifference  itself  was  underneath. 
Hence  the  extreme  bitterness  of  her  bitter  cry. 

The  time  round  about  the  publication  of 
Delphine  was  mostly  spent  in  Switzerland. 
Madame  de  Stael  had  received  a  hint  from  the 
highest  quarters  that  she  had  better  stay  there, 

126 


Social  Life  at  Coppet 

and  she  took  it.  She  had  her  children  to  educate, 
and  her  father  to  look  after.  The  old  man  was 
so  excited  by  the  success  of  his  daughter's  novel 
that  he  too  sat  down  to  write  a  work  of  fiction.  He 
had  maintained  in  conversation  that  the  domestic 
affections  might,  no  less  than  passionate  love,  lead 
up  to  tragedy,  and  his  story  was  an  exercise  upon 
the  theme.  Suites  Funestes  dune  seule  Faute, 
"  The  Disastrous  Consequences  of  a  Single  Error," 
is  its  somewhat  tract-like  title.  Let  those  read  it 
who  can.  It  has  the  merit,  at  any  rate,  of  brevity. 
Certain  social  distractions  also  mitigated  the 
exile.  Madame  de  Stael  had  her  own  society 
at  Coppet,  and  the  society  of  Geneva  was  open 
to  her.  In  the  lists  of  those  whom  she  received 
at  her  home  we  meet  the  names  of  Sismondi,^ 
Bonstetten,^  Madame  de  Krudener,^  and  Madame 
Recamier ;  but  our  picture  of  the  Coppet  Salon 
will  be  better  deferred  until  we  come  to  its  later, 
palmier  period.  Of  the  occasional  visits  to  Geneva 
there  is  a  picturesque  account  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Universelle  from  the  pen  of  Mallet  d' Haute ville. 
The  parties  which  she  attended,  he  says,  "  had 
something  of  the  stiffness  and  etiquette  of  a 
Court ;  "  and  he  continues  : — 

"  There  were  times  when  this  little  foreign  Court 
invaded  the  drawing-rooms  of  the  town.      The 

^  The  economist  and  historian. 

^  At  one   time   Bernese  Governor  of  Nyon.     An  amateur  of 
letters,  and  a  friend  of  Gray. 

^  Author  of  Valerie.    Afterwards  she  found  religion,  and  became 
a  missionary. 

127 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

folding-doors  used  to  be  thrown  wide  open,  and 
the  authoress  entered  at  the  head  of  her  retinue. 
She  was  attired  as  a  Sibyl,  just  as  she  is  repre- 
sented in  her  portraits,  with  her  black  hair  framed 
in  her  turban,  and  her  fingers  waved  a  little  spray 
of  leaves,  which  moved  faster  and  faster  to  keep 
pace  with  her  thoughts.  Outside  the  circle  of 
those  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  conversation 
was  grouped  a  ring  of  silent  listeners  ;  while  young 
inginues,  observing  the  celebrated  lady  from  a 
distance,  wondered  how  it  was  that  she  inspired 
such  lively  sentiments  of  regard." 

This  homage,  however,  did  not  content  her ; 
and  she  found  still  less  satisfaction  in  the  beauty 
of  the  scenery.  She  could  look  at  Mont  Blanc, 
and  sigh  for  the  gutter  of  the  Rue  du  Bac.  She 
was  taken  for  a  trip  to  Chamonix,  and  returned, 
Mallet  d' Haute ville  tells  us,  "breathless  and  in- 
dignant, wanting  to  know  what  crime  she  had  had 
to  expiate  by  a  visit  to  this  terrible  country." 
Paris  was  her  Rome,  her  Mecca,  her  Jerusalem,  on 
which  her  eyes  were  always  fixed.  "  Actualities," 
she  wrote  to  Gerando,^  "  are  what  exiles  such  as 
we  are  live  on.  My  father  and  I  are  not  so  fond 
of  rustic  life  as  you,  and  we  are  eager  for  anecdotes 
even  in  the  presence  of  Mont  Blanc." 

She  seems,  at  this  period,  to  have  been  corre- 
sponding with  everybody  about  everything.  She 
wrote  about  the  philosophy  of  Kant  to  Villers, 

*  Marie-Joseph  de  Gdrando  (1772-1842)  was  a  voluminous  writer, 
chiefly  on  educational  subjects ;  an  authority,  notably,  on  the 
education  of  deaf  mutes. 

128 


Camille  Jordan 

who  had  lately  introduced  the  transcendental 
teaching  to  French  readers,  and  who  was  much 
too  polite  to  tell  her  that  she  did  not  understand  it. 
She  inquired  from  G^rando  about  her  early  love, 
M.  de  Narbonne.  Did  he  still  think  of  her  ?  Had 
he  read  Delphine,  and,  if  so,  what  did  he  say  about  it? 
She  laments,  again  and  again,  that  she  is,  and  has 
reason  to  be,  unhappy.  "  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion,"  she  tells  Gdrando,  "  that  suffering 
is  the  natural  condition  of  human  kind,  and  I  live 
with  a  pain  in  my  heart  which  is  like  a  physical 
ailment." 

In  the  midst  of  all  this,  however,  we  find  her 
unfaithful,  at  least  in  thought,  to  Benjamin 
Constant,  and  temporarily  admitting  a  rival  to 
her  affections,  in  the  person  of  Camille  Jordan. 

He  was  a  journalist  and  minor  politician  of  the 
period.  During  the  Terror  he  had  become  an 
^migrd  as  the  consequence  of  his  conduct  at  the 
revolt  of  Lyons,  and  he  had  been  driven  into  exile  a 
second  time  through  his  opposition  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day.  Now  he  was  back  again,  and 
was  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  Gdrando,  who  was 
living  at  Madame  de  Stael's  country  seat  at  Saint- 
Ouen.  That  was  how  her  friendship  with  him 
began;  and  already  in  1801  we  find  her  writing 
to  Gdrando  about  him. 

"  I  have,"  she  confesses,  "the  most  tender  feel- 
ing for  him  ;    and  it  is  a  painful  thought  to  me 
that  you  will  find  him  a  wife,  and  that  he  will  thus 
have  affections  which  will  thrust  me  away  from 
I  129 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

him.     I  shall  write  my  first  letter  to  him  to  warn 
him  against  matrimony." 

She  did  more  than  this,  as  we  know  from  the 
collection  of  her  letters  which  Sainte  -  Beuve 
published  in  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes.  This 
is  the  first  passage  which  seems  to  indicate 
something  more  than  sisterly  regard  : — 

"  I  had  a  lock  of  my  hair  which  used  to  belong 
to  poor  M.  de  Stael.  I  was  meaning  to  send  it 
to  you,  but  you  appeared  so  engrossed  in  admira- 
tion of  Madame  de  Krudener's  fair  tresses  that  I 
feel  shy  of  offering  my  own  black  locks,  and  they 
shall  stay  where  they  are  until  we  meet  again." 

But  that  should  not  be  long  if  Madame  de  Stael 
could  help  it.  There  follows  an  invitation — "  not 
to  be  mentioned  even  to  Mathieu  or  to  our  good 
friend  (G^rando)  " —  to  travel  in  Italy. 

"  I  have  money  enough  to  arrange  for  you  to 
make  an  agreeable  journey  practically  without 
expense  to  yourself  Benjamin  will  be  in  Paris 
for  the  winter.  ...  If  you  do  not  agree  to  this 
plan  which  I  have  at  heart,  do  not  speak  of  it  to 
anyone,  for  I  must  not  allow  this  idea  to  cool  the 
affection  of  my  other  friends.  To  forget  all  that  has 
been  troubling  me  during  the  last  six  months — to 
forget  it  with  you  whom  I  love  so  well  under  the  blue 
Italian  sky — that  is  what  will  make  me  happy." 

Camille  Jordan,  however,  excused  himself;  and 
in  the  next  letter  we  read  : — 

"  I  knew  very  well,  my  dear  Camille,  that  what 
130 


Love  Merges  into  Friendship 

Is  commonly  called  reason  was  not  on  the  side  of 
my  proposal ;  but  I  felt  a  passionate  desire  for 
something  better  than  reason  when  this  idea  came 
to  me.  Let  us  say  no  more  about  it.  .  .  .  My 
revenge  now  limits  itself  to  the  wish  that  when 
you  read  Delphine  you  may  be  sorry  that  our  plan 
has  vanished  into  thin  air." 

That  was  the  end  of  the  episode,  though  by  no 
means  the  end  of  the  friendship  ;  for,  in  Madame 
de  Stael's  case,  friendship  and  love  always  merged 
into  one  another  by  infinitely  fine  gradations. 
When  she  could  not  be  a  man's  mistress,  she  was 
always  willing  to  be  a  sister  to  him.  That  had  been 
the  end  of  her  relations  with  M.  de  Narbonne  ;  that 
was  the  end  of  her  relations  with  Camille  Jordan. 
Presently,  in  spite  of  her  warning,  he  got  married  ; 
and  her  letter  of  congratulation  ran  as  follows  : — 

**  I  admit  that  I  am  not  very  fond  of  seeing 
my  friends  get  married,  but  when  they  do  so,  I 
should  be  a  very  indifferent  friend  if  I  did  not  try 
to  enter  into  their  feelings.  If  I  meet  Madame 
Camille,  I  shall  be  as  nice  with  her  as  I  have  been 
with  you.     Is  not  that  as  it  should  be  ?  " 

And  she  kept  her  word.  She  complained,  in  a 
subsequent  letter,  that  Camille  was  "stiff"  with 
her.  But  she  also  sent  her  compliments  to 
Madame  Camille, — "provided  she  is  willing  to 
receive  them." 

For  the  moment,  however,  all  her  activities 
were  directed  to  obtaining  permission  to  reside  in 
Paris.     She  set  her  friends  to  work.     Her  father 

131 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

petitioned  the  Emperor  on  her  behalf — fragments 
of  the  rough  drafts  of  his  petition  are  treasured 
among  the  Coppet  archives — but  all  in  vain.  It 
was  evident  that  she  must  come  to  Paris  without 
leave  or  not  at  all.  The  breach  of  the  Peace  of 
Amiens,  and  the  massing  of  the  Army  of  England 
at  Boulogne,  seemed  likely  to  monopolise 
Napoleon's  attention,  and  there  was  a  chance — 
especially  as  his  brother  Joseph  was  her  friend — 
that  he  would  forget  to  turn  her  out.  At  least, 
it  should  be  safe  for  her  to  settle  somewhere  near 
Paris  ;  so  she  packed  and  started. 

First  she  visited  Madame  Rdcamier  at  Saint- 
Brice,  and  nothing  happened.  Then  she  settled 
at  Mafliers,  about  ten  miles  from  the  capital,  and 
things  began  to  happen.  "It  is  determined  by 
the  Government,"  Fouch^  had  written,  "that  this 
foreigner  shall  not  remain  in  France."  Madame 
de  Genlis,  her  virtuous  rival  in  literature,  had 
whispered  to  the  First  Consul,  not  only  that  she 
was  in  France,  but  also  that  the  road  to  her  house 
was  enlivened  by  the  conversation  of  her  visitors. 
She  received  a  hint  to  move,  and  the  hint  was 
followed  by  a  visit  from  an  officer  oi  gendarmerie, 
conveying  the  order  that  she  should  set  off  within 
four-and-twenty  hours.  She  protested ;  and  he 
used  his  discretion  to  the  extent  of  allowing  her 
to  go  first  to  Paris,  where  she  thought  her 
friends,  Junot  and  Joseph  Bonaparte,  might  be 
able  to  get  her  sentence  rescinded. 

They  did  their  best.  Joseph  went  so  far  as  to 
132 


Departure  from  France 

offer  her  a  temporary  refuge  at  his  country  seat  at 
Morfontaine.  She  stayed  three  days  there,  but 
felt  her  position  painfully.  Treated  with  every 
courtesy,  she  was  nevertheless  surrounded  by 
officials,  and  could  not  display  her  emotions  or  speak 
her  mind.     Where  to  go  ?  was  her  problem. 

"  My  father,"  she  writes  in  Dix  anndes  d'exil, 
"  would  have  received  with  unspeakable  kindness 
his  poor  storm-beaten  bird  ;  but  I  feared  my  own 
emotions  of  disgust  at  finding  myself  sent  back 
to  a  country  which  I  was  accused  of  finding  a  little 
tedious.  I  also  felt  the  desire  to  recover,  through 
the  good  reception  which  I  was  promised  in 
Germany,  from  the  outrage  which  the  First  Consul 
was  inflicting  upon  me.  I  wanted  to  oppose  the 
kindly  welcome  of  ancient  dynasties  to  the  im- 
pertinence of  the  dynasty  which  was  preparing 
to  subjugate  France.  This  sentiment  of  amour- 
propre  carried  the  day." 

So  it  was  settled  that  she  would  go  to  Germany. 
Joseph  Bonaparte  hurried  to  Saint  Cloud  to 
procure  the  necessary  permission,  for  which  she 
had  to  sit  and  wait  in  a  suburban  inn,  and  also 
gave  her  letters  of  introduction  at  Berlin. 
Benjamin  Constant,  in  spite  of  the  Camille  Jordan 
episode, — of  which  perhaps  he  did  not  know,  since 
the  young  man  had  been  solicited  to  hold  his 
tongue  about  it, — was  willing  to  accompany  her. 
They  set  off  sorrowfully ;  but  by  the  time  they 
reached  Chalons,  he  had,  she  relates,  restored  her 
to  cheerfulness  by  his  "  astonishing  conversation." 


133 


CHAPTER  XII 

Travel  in  Germany — The  German  view  of  Madame  de  Stael — Life 
at  Weimar — And  at  Berlin — Benjamin  Constant's  studies  and 
amusements — Extracts  from  his  Diary — Death  of  Necker. 

In  a  sense,  and  up  to  a  point,  the  German  journey 
was  a  triumphal  progress. 

The  Germans,  of  course,  had  their  own  point 
of  view,  and  made  their  reservations.  They  were 
quite  sure  that  Madame  de  Stael  did  not  under- 
stand their  metaphysics,  and  they  were  right.  "  I 
do  not  like  the  Forms  and  the  Categories,"  is  a 
sentence  from  one  of  her  letters  about  the  philo- 
sophy of  Kant ;  and  in  another  letter  she 
expressed  the  opinion  that  Kant's  views  as  to  the 
origin  of  our  ideas  were  quite  reconcilable  with 
those  of  Locke.  When  she  set  out  to  interpret 
the  Kantian  doctrine  to  her  countrymen,  she  para- 
phrased it  into  cloudy  sentimental  gush.  To  the 
horror  of  Crabb  Robinson,  who  had  tried  to  teach 
her  what  the  categorical  imperative  really  was,  she 
began  her  restatement  of  the  doctrine  with  the 
emotional  qualification :  "  Pour  les  coeurs  sensibles." 
The  Germans,  at  any  rate,  knew  better  than  that ; 
and  Goethe  even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  she 
did  not  appear  to  have  any  conception  of  the 
nature  of  "  the  thing  commonly  called  duty  "—a 

134 


German  View  of  Madame  de  Stael 

thing  which  she  was,  indeed,  at  that  stage,  a  Httle 
apt  to  confuse  with  her  personal  inclinations. 

German  poetry  too  was,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  a  closed  book  to  her.  She  had,  it  is 
true,  outgrown  the  stage  at  which  she  could  write 
to  Henri  Meister  :  '*  I  flatter  myself  that  I  already 
know  everything  that  has  been  said  in  the  German 
language  and  everything  that  is  likely  to  be  said 
in  it  in  the  course  of  the  next  half-century." 
She  had  begun  to  learn  the  language,  and  could 
read  it  a  little  though  she  could  not  talk  it ;  and 
she  admitted  in  theory  that  the  German  nation 
had  a  message  to  mankind.  But  whatever  may 
have  been  the  case  when  she  had,  for  several 
years,  had  Schlegel  to  prompt  her,  she  certainly 
did  not  understand  the  nature  of  that  message 
then.  Crabb  Robinson  said  to  her,  point  blank  : 
**  Madame,  you  have  never  understood  Goethe, 
and  you  will  never  understand  him ; "  and  she 
could  think  of  no  better  retort  than :  "  Sir,  I 
understand  everything  that  is  worthy  of  being 
understood.  Whatever  I  do  not  understand  is  of 
no  importance."  Most  of  the  Germans  were  of 
Crabb  Robinson's  opinion. 

Most  of  the  Germans,  again,  found  Madame  de 
Stael  too  voluble  for  their  taste.  Some  of  them 
resented  the  necessity  of  conversing  with  her  in 
French.  **  I  should  think  it  my  duty,"  said  Voss, 
"  to  learn  French  before  going  to  France  ;  "  and 
he  considered  that  the  French  ought  to  learn 
German  before  going  to  Germany.     To  others  it 

135 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

seemed  shocking  that  she  skimmed  Hghtly  over 
the  surface  of  subjects,  instead  of  probing  them  to 
the  bottom  in  quest  of  truth.  '*  Madame  de 
Stael,"  wrote  Reichardt,  "  was  much  fonder  of 
comparing  the  results  of  her  inquiries  with  her 
personal  opinions  than  of  identifying  herself  with 
the  object  of  her  studies."  The  general  com- 
plaint, however,  was  of  the  ceaselessness  and 
volume  of  her  talk.  Goethe,  sitting  buried  in 
reflection  at  the  ducal  supper-table,  was  hurt  by 
her  remark  that  he  was  never  really  brilliant  until 
after  he  had  got  through  a  bottle  of  champagne. 
Schiller  confessed  to  having  had  "a  rough  time" 
in  dialogue  with  her,  and  declared  that  her  de- 
parture left  him  feeling  like  a  man  who  had  just 
recovered  from  a  serious  illness. 

And  yet  the  progress  was  a  triumph  in  the 
main.  Germany  had  already  interested  itself  in 
Madame  de  Stael.  "  I  have  to  answer  so  many 
letters  (mostly  from  Germans),"  she  had  written, 
in  1 80 1,  "that  half  my  life  is  thus  taken  up." 
Some  of  her  writings  had  been  translated  and 
discussed.  Her  arrival  was  awaited,  therefore, 
with  a  hush  of  expectation ;  and,  wherever  she 
went,  glamour  attended  her.  She  was  something 
more  than  the  comet  of  a  season ;  and  even  those 
who  disapproved  were  dazzled. 

Metz  (though  Metz  was  not  then  in  Germany) 
was  the  first  stage.  It  was  there  that  she  wrote 
that  she  did  not  know  what  she  would  have  done 
without  Benjamin.     But  the  Prefect  was  "per- 

136 


Arrival  at  Weimar 

feet "  for  her ;  and  she  had  her  opportunity  of 
meeting  M.  de  Villers/  with  whom  she  had  corre- 
sponded about  Kant,  though,  as  it  happened,  she 
did  not  find  him  quite  the  kindred  soul  that  she 
expected.     He  had  with  him,  she  wrote,  "a  fat 
German  woman  whose  precise  attractions  I  have 
not  been  able  to  discover."    What  she  did  discover 
was   that   those   attractions  were    no    negligible 
quantity,  but  barred  the  path   to  intimacy  with 
M.  de  Villers.     She  made  an  appointment  to  meet 
him  alone  in  the  Cathedral,  and  he  kept  it.     But, 
says  the  editor  of  the  Letters  to  G^rando,  **he 
gave  Madame  de  Stael  to  understand  that  he  was 
linked  by  an  invincible  gratitude  to  Madame  de 
Rodde  and  her  family,  though  he  would  always 
behave   to   his  new  acquaintance  as   a   devoted 
friend."     She  wrote  him  some  letters  complaining 
that  his  devotion  was  too  limited  in  character,  and 
then  passed  upon  her  way. 

At  Frankfort  there  was  a  delay,  owing  to  the 
illness  of  Albertine  de  Stael,  who  caught  scarlet 
fever ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of  December 
that  the  party  arrived  at  Weimar. 

No  one  needs  to  be  reminded  that  Weimar  was 
in  those  days  the  Teuton  Athens.  Goethe, 
Schiller,  Wieland,  and  Herder  were  the  great 
fixed  stars  of  its  literary  firmament.  The  life 
was  homely,  but  the  ideas  were  not  straitlaced. 
Uncongenial  couples  divorced  each  other  without 

^  M.  de  Villers  first  introduced  Kant's  philosophy  to  the  French. 
He  became  Professor  of  Literature  at  Gottingen. 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

malice,  and  lived  happily  ever  afterwards,  Duke 
Charles  Augustus  was  the  father  and  brother  of 
his  people.  Duchess  Louise  was  their  hostess. 
Madame  de  Stael  was  at  once  made  the  most 
welcome  of  their  guests.  For  a  long  time  she 
supped  every  night  at  the  Palace ;  and  with  the 
Duchess  she  formed  a  memorable  friendship,  the 
recollection  of  which  is  kept  alive  by  an  interesting 
correspondence,  extending  over  a  period  of  many 
years. 

From  Weimar  Madame  de  Stael  went  on  to 
Berlin,  where  she  arrived  in  March  1804;  and 
there  the  Weimar  triumph  was  repeated.  Joseph 
Bonaparte's  introduction  to  Laforest,  the  French 
Ambassador,  had  made  things  easy  for  her. 
Among  the  personages  whom  she  met  were  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  the  Prince  and  Princess  of 
Brunswick,  the  Duchess  of  Courland,  Princess 
Radziwill,  Brinckmann,  the  Ambassador  from 
Sweden,  Fichte,  Kotzebue,  and  A.  W.  Schlegel, 
whom  she  engaged  to  be  her  son's  tutor  (and 
incidentally  her  own)  at  a  salary  of  12,000  francs 
a  year.  A  few  sentences  from  a  letter  to  Duchess 
Louise  of  Weimar  will  best  give  the  picture  of  her 
reception  at  the  Prussian  Court. 

"  I  went  to  see  the  reigning  Queen ;  and  the 
Court,  on  that  day,  was  veritably  imposing.  At 
the  instant  of  the  Queen's  entrance  all  the  instru- 
ments of  music  began  to  play,  and  I  experienced 
a  truly  lively  emotion. 

"The   Queen,    in   all   the    distinction    of    her 

138 


Gaiety  at  Berlin 

beauty,  appeared.  She  approached  me,  and,  with 
many  other  complimentary  phrases,  addressed  to 
me  these  words,  which  I  really  cannot  forget : 
*  I  hope,  Madame,  that  you  regard  us  as  persons 
of  sufficiently  good  taste  to  be  extremely  flattered 
by  your  arrival  at  Berlin.  I  was  very  impatient 
to  make  your  acquaintance.' 

"  All  the  Princesses  whom  I  saw  at  Weimar, 
and  who  love  me,  because  your  Highness  has 
spoken  of  me,  came  up  to  kiss  me.  The  King 
spoke  to  me  very  kindly,  and  I  was  surrounded 
by  a  kindness  which  touched  my  heart.  .  .  . 

"The  Prince  of  Orange  and  Prince  Radziwill 
called  upon  me  on  the  morning  of  my  arrival,  and 
gave  me  permission  to  bring  Auguste  to  the 
famous  masquerade.  All  our  society,  for  the 
last  twenty  days,  has  been  thinking  of  nothing 
but  the  masquerade ;  rehearsals,  dresses,  ballets 
filled  all  their  heads ;  and  though  I  was  a  little 
late  in  my  arrival  at  Berlin  I  really  missed 
nothing  on  this  occasion  save  a  more  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  dancing  steps  executed 
yesterday.  We  remained  until  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning  to  see  the  Queen  dance  in  a  pantomime 
representing  the  return  of  Alexander  to  Babylon. 
There  were  two  thousand  spectators.  .  .  . 

'*  Several  quadrilles  succeeded  that  dance,  and 
then  Kotzebue  arrived  as  a  priest  of  Mercury — or 
perhaps  it  was  as  Mercury  himself — with  a  wand  in 
his  hand  and  a  crown  of  poppies  on  his  head.  ..." 

The  letter  was  written  in  bed,  the  writer's 
head  being  "still  full  of  the  noise  of  drums 
and    trumpets."      In    a    letter    to    G^rando,   of 

139 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

approximately  the  same  date,  she  tries  to  describe 
the  effect  of  all  this  gaiety  upon  her  spirits  :  "  By 
dint  of  reflection  I  manage  to  endure  life  in  spite 
of  my  exile  ;  but  my  heart  strings  are  still  wrung." 
Her  chief  satisfaction  was  probably  in  her  fame — 
that  fame  which  she  was  presently  to  describe  as 
**a  splendid  mourning  for  happiness."  Losing 
her  sense  of  proportion,  she  could  easily  think 
that  she  was  hardly  less  famous  than  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  himself.  That  thought  was  doubtless 
more  comforting  than  the  consolations  of  German 
philosophy ;  and  for  the  time  being  it  seems  to 
have  outweighed  even  her  sentimental  interests. 
But  then,  on  April  18,  came  the  news  that  her 
father  was  lying  dangerously  ill  at  Coppet ;  and 
she  posted  in  all  haste  back  to  Weimar,  where 
Benjamin  Constant  was  waiting  for  her. 

In  the  whirl  of  excitement  Benjamin  Constant 
had  slipped  into  the  background  of  Madame  de 
Stael's  thoughts.  It  is  not  even  clear  how  far 
he  was  willingly  in  attendance  on  her.  We  have 
already  seen  him,  in  the  months  immediately 
preceding  his  departure,  discussing  the  question 
of  marriage,  and  considering  the  suitability  of 
various  possible  brides.  His  cousin  Rosalie  even 
supposed,  for  an  instant,  that  he  had  decided  on 
the  step ;  and  his  denial  breathed  no  special 
devotion  to  his  mistress.  "  After  so  many  years," 
he  wrote,  "of  a  tie  much  closer  than  marriage, 
I  need  to  breathe  the  air  of  freedom."  And  then 
came  the   tidings   of  Madame   de   Stael's  exile, 

140 


Benjamin  Constant's  Diary  Begun 

and  her  appeal,  at  a  time  when  his  political 
activities  were  temporarily  suspended,  and  all  his 
resolutions  were  scattered,  "  I  suppose  it  seemed 
natural  to  you,"  he  wrote  to  Rosalie,  "  that,  in  spite 
of  my  resolves  of  this  summer,  I  did  not  hesitate 
to  render  to  a  person  to  whom  I  cannot  cease 
to  be  attached  in  very  sincere  friendship  all  the 
services  that  I  could  in  the  most  painful  circum- 
stance of  her  life.  It  is  impossible  to  complain  of 
one's  friends  at  a  time  when  they  are  unhappy." 

He  accompanied  Madame  de  Stael,  therefore, 
to  Metz,  to  Frankfort,  and  to  Weimar.  At 
Frankfort  he  helped  her,  with  great  devotion,  to 
nurse  Albertine.  At  Weimar  he  took  Albertine 
to  the  theatre — we  shall  find  many  indications, 
in  the  course  of  the  narrative,  of  his  passionate 
fondness  for  the  child ;  but  his  attentions  to  the 
mother  were  not,  at  the  time,  conspicuous,  and 
Crabb  Robinson  was  even  disposed  to  be  sceptical 
of  the  gossip  as  to  his  relations  with  her. 

His  time  was  largely  given  to  study.  He  was 
writing  a  History  of  Religions — the  same  History 
of  Religions  which  he  had  begun  to  write  on  the 
backs  of  playing-cards  in  the  boudoir  of  Madame 
de  Charriere.  He  was  not  to  finish  it  for  many 
years  to  come ;  for  his  views  on  religion  were 
always  changing,  and  the  necessity  of  recasting 
his  work  was  always  with  him.  Moreover — what 
is  more  important  for  our  purpose — he  began,  in 
January  1804,  the  composition  of  that  marvellous 
diary  known  as  the  Journal  Intime.     He  wrote 

141 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

it  in  Greek  characters,  as  an  indication  that  it 
was  private  and  confidential ;  but  it  was,  of 
course,  easy  enough  for  the  inheritors  of  his 
papers  to  decipher  it,  and  it  was  first  printed 
in  the  Revue  Internationale  in  1887,  and  has  since 
been  reprinted,  though  there  exists  no  EngHsh 
translation  of  it.  It  is  a  faithful  record  of  events, 
and  also  of  the  diarist's  inner  life  —  a  unique 
example  of  keen  and  candid  introspection.  Read- 
ing it,  we  feel  that  we  know  the  lover  of  Madame 
de  Stael  far  better  than  either  she  or  any  of  his  con- 
temporaries knew  him.  In  telling  the  remainder 
of  the  story  we  will  follow  it  wherever  possible. 

The  earlier  entries  are  chiefly  about  his  work 
and  his  German  acquaintances.  Goethe  is  full 
of  wit  and  new  ideas — **  mais  c'est  le  moins  bon- 
homme  que  je  connaisse."  Wieland's  is  a  French 
intelligence — "  cold  as  a  philosopher  and  light- 
headed as  a  poet."  Herder  resembles  "a  soft 
warm  bed  in  which  one  dreams  agreeably."  A 
dinner  with  the  Bethmanns  suggests  the  remark 
that  "  the  commercial  spirit  is  a  tiresome  thing," 
nothing  more  important  having  transpired  in  the 
conversation  than  that  somebody  had  killed  five 
snipe  that  morning.  And  so  forth  ;  even  approba- 
tion being  expressed  in  epigrams,  but  due  thanks 
being  always  rendered  for  any  helpful  idea  on  the 
History  of  Religion.  The  Germans,  it  appears  to 
Benjamin  Constant,  differ  from  the  French  in  that, 
even  when  they  are  dull,  as  often  happens,  they 
are  nearly  always  sane  and  well-informed. 

142 


Extracts  from  the  Diary 

By  degrees,  however,  the  Diary  becomes  more 
intimate.  "  A  charming  child  ! "  is  the  entry  when 
Albertine  is  taken  to  the  theatre ;  but  we  read 
some  way  before  we  find  any  mention  of  Madame  de 
Stael.  "  A  letter  from  Madame  Talma  "  is  the  first 
allusion  to  a  relation  to  which  we  shall  find  further 
references  ;  but  the  general  impression  is  that 
the  writer  is  weary  of  women.  At  one  moment, 
indeed,  when  he  has  gone  to  Leipzig  and  is  alone, 
he  exclaims:  "There  is  nothing  in  the  world  so 
good,  so  loving,  and  so  devoted  as  a  woman ; " 
but  this  utterance  seems  more  characteristic  : — 

"  Dined  with  a  number  of  women — brilliant 
women.  Their  brilliance  consists  of  bustle  with- 
out purpose — entirely  a  creation  of  Society,  and 
in  consequence  artificial.  So  long  as  they  are 
a  little  pretty  that  is  all  very  well.  Our  physical 
interest  in  them  makes  us  pardon  the  useless  and 
ineffectual  agitation  of  moral  nature.  But  at  a 
certain  age  women  are  no  longer  fit  for  society. 
There  remains  for  them  the  rdle  of  friends — but 
of  friends  kept  in  retirement,  receiving  confidences 
and  giving  advice  to  men  in  whose  interest  they 
fill  only  the  second  or  third  place." 

And  what  Benjamin  Constant  says  of  women 
in  general,  he  also  says  of  certain  women  in 
particular.  There  is  a  Madame  Schac  .... 
whom  we  need  not  try  to  identify,  from  whom  he 
receives  a  billet  tendre.  "Poor  woman!"  is  his 
comment.  He  is  sure  she  would  be  better  off  in 
Oriental  retirement ;  and  he  writes  mournfully  : — 

143 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  I  write  to  Madame  de  Schac  ....  to  take  a 
sad,  respectful,  and  tender  farewell  of  her.  Here 
is  another  inclination  towards  me  which  I  do 
not  desire.  And  the  time  will  come  when  even 
that  sort  of  thing  will  not  be  offered  to  me. 
Why  are  youth  and  beauty  so  proud  ?  Do  we 
never  find  humility  and  gentleness  save  when 
youth  and  beauty  have  departed  ? " 

"A  desirable  woman!  Ces^  lEnferl"  is  the 
comment  on  another  lady,  with  whose  husband 
Benjamin  wants  to  go  out  to  supper,  in  order 
that  he  may  escape  from  her  attentions ;  and 
then  comes  another  general  outburst,  which  is 
evidently  directed  at  Madame  de  Stael,  though 
there  is  no  mention  of  her  name. 

*'  The  attachment  of  some  women,  and  the  sway 
which  they  maintain  over  a  man,  to  the  great 
astonishment  of  the  world  at  large,  may  be 
compared  to  the  fatal  sleep  which  overtakes 
travellers  on  the  Great  Saint  Bernard.  These 
travellers  are  not  satisfied  with  their  position, 
but  they  give  way  to  the  sensation  of  the  moment, 
which  every  passing  instant  makes  more  difficult 
to  resist.  And  death  comes  to  them  while  they 
are  making  up  their  minds  to  get  up  and  go." 

That  was  written  on  the  road  from  Weimar 
to  Switzerland,  where  Benjamin  had  business 
to  transact.  As  he  bowled  along  in  his  post- 
chaise,  he  read  Greek, — like  a  man  of  taste  he 
much  preferred  Sophocles  to  Euripides, — reviewed 
his   situation,    and   tried   to    fix   his   plans.     He 

144 


Satisfaction  in  Literary  Pursuits 

wrote  to  Madame  de  Stael,  recommending  one 
Screiben  as  a  tutor,  but  reflected :  *'  The  main 
thing  is  to  know  that  he  is  the  sort  of  man  who 
will  teach  the  children  in  addition  to  interesting 
the  mother."  But  he  tried  to  picture  his  own 
future  without  reference  to  her. 

"  Whence  come  the  sad  and  sombre  ideas  which 
overwhelm  me  to-day  ?  Have  I  then  lost  all 
power  over  myself.'*  Is  not  my  destiny  in  my 
own  hands?  Have  I  not  recovered  a  power  of 
work  beyond  what  I  had  hoped  for?  In  order 
to  be  happy  I  only  need  the  will  to  be  so.  I 
should  be  so  if  I  could  make  up  my  mind  to  three 
things :  to  live  a  purely  literary  life ;  to  keep 
aloof  from  public  affairs  which  I  have  quitted 
through  a  perfectly  irreproachable  line  of  conduct ; 
to  settle  in  a  country  in  which  I  find  light, 
security,  and  independence.  That  is  all  that  I 
require.  I  wish  all  my  efforts  to  tend  to  those 
ends.  I  must  find  a  means  of  fixing  my  whole 
life  in  literary  pursuits.  Literature  will  satisfy 
all  my  aspirations.  The  things  I  know  and  the 
things  I  learn  give  me  sufficient  joy.  If  I  lived 
for  a  hundred  years,  the  study  of  the  Greeks 
alone  would  be  enough  for  me.  I  am  reading 
the  Antigone.  What  an  admirable  man  was 
Sophocles ! " 

Then  he  analyses.  Why  is  it  that,  whatever 
he  does,  people  are  always  able  to  make  out 
that  he  is  in  the  wrong?  It  must  be  because 
he  is  sensitive,  and  because  he  is  not  a  fool. 
"When  one  is  a  fool,  one  has  all  the  fools  on 
K  145 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

one's  side."  And  so  to  Lausanne,  where  his 
cousins  and  his  aunts  renew  their  advice  to  him 
to  marry  and  settle  down.  He  cannot  stand  the 
place.  It  is  too  dull  and  stupid.  No  one  there 
takes  any  interest  in  his  literary  pursuits.  "No 
one  can  understand  what  I  say  about  anything." 
He  will  go  back  to  Germany  and  settle  there. 
His  work  shall  be  the  one  interest,  the  one  con- 
solation, of  his  life.  But  then  comes  sad  and 
startling  news,  upsetting  all  his  schemes. 

"  M.  Necker  is  dead.  What  will  become  of  his 
daughter  ?  What  despair  for  her  in  the  present ! 
What  loneliness  in  the  future!  I  want  to  see 
her,  to  console  her,  or  at  least  to  help  her  to 
bear  up.  Poor  unhappy  woman  !  When  I  recall 
her  suffering,  her  anxiety,  two  months  ago,  and 
her  lively  joy,  which  was  to  be  of  such  short 
duration.  Better  death  than  this  pain.  And  the 
good  M.  Necker,  how  I  regret  him !  So  noble, 
so  affectionate,  so  disinterested !  Who  now  will 
be  the  guide  of  his  daughter's  existence  ?" 

Again  he  looks  into  his  own  heart.  He  finds 
in  himself  a  double  personality — "one  always 
watching  the  other."  He  is  sad,  and  yet  knows 
that  the  sadness  will  pass  away ;  but  he  will  not 
let  it — "  because  I  know  that  Madame  de  Stael 
needs  me  not  only  to  console  her,  but  to  suffer 
with  her."  For  the  moment,  therefore,  his  course 
is  clear :  "  I  have  decided  to  set  out  again  for 
Germany,  to  meet  Madame  de  Stael,  who  is  on 
her  way  back." 

146 


CHAPTER   XIII 

Madame  de  Stael  returns  to  Coppet — The  reason  why  she  was  not 
allowed  to  go  to  Paris — She  decides  to  visit  Italy — Benjamin 
Constant  drags  at  his  chain — Further  extracts  from  his  Diary. 

Of  the  death  of  Necker,  as  of  the  death  of 
Napoleon,  it  may  be  said  that,  whereas  at  one 
time  it  would  have  been  an  event,  it  was,  when 
it  occurred,  only  an  item  of  news.  He  had  risen 
from  obscurity  to  fame ;  he  had  failed ;  he  had 
been  found  out ;  he  had  been  forgotten.  That 
is  his  biography  in  a  sentence.  Napoleon's 
contempt  for  him  was  profound.  "The  old  boy 
was  maundering,"  was  his  comment  when  Necker 
submitted  plans  for  a  French  Constitution ;  and 
after  his  death  he  summed  him  up  as  the  very 
type  of  mediocrity — "with  his  pompousness,  his 
fussiness,  and  his  string  of  figures." 

In  the  domestic  circle,  however,  incense  had 
always  been  lavishly  burnt  to  him.  He  himself 
printed  the  eulogy  in  which  his  wife  declared 
that  "  if  men  were  originally  angels,  then  I  think 
that  M.  Necker  must  have  been  charged  in  that 
character  with  the  task  of  clearing  up  chaos 
before  the  Creator  deigned  to  descend  and  make 
the  world."  His  daughter  worshipped  him 
no    less,    and    loved    him   with    a   more   ardent 

147 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

passion.  She  even  uttered  the  singular  regret 
that  she  had  not  known  her  father  as  a  young 
man — "for  then  our  lots  might  have  been  linked 
for  ever ; "  and  now  her  cry  was  that  "  the  waves  of 
life  have  swept  everything  away  from  me  except 
this  great  shadow  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain 
pointing  to  the  life  to  come."  It  was  indeed  im- 
perative that  Benjamin  Constant  should  go  to  her. 
Sismondi  accompanied  him.  **  He  has  been 
told  so  often,"  Benjamin  comments,  "that  he  is 
rendering  a  great  service  that  he  is  almost 
frightened  by  the  grandeur  of  his  own  conduct." 
But  he  himself  was  making  the  journey  more  as 
a  comforter  than  as  a  lover.  He  knows  indeed 
that  he  will  find  "  the  person  whom  I  love  best 
in  the  world  abandoned  to  the  most  terrible 
despair  "  ;  but  his  next  comment  is  : — 

"  Destiny  seems  pleased  to  condemn  me  to 
wear  out  my  health,  which  is  good,  and  my 
talents,  which  are  sufficiently  distinguished,  with- 
out attaining  either  pleasure  or  glory.  The 
moment  is  approaching,  however,  when  I  must 
set  my  life  in  order,  and  make  use  of  the  years 
and  faculties  that  remain  intact  to  leave  some 
memory  behind  me.  My  most  urgent  task  is 
to  help  my  unhappy  friend.  But,  however  her 
lot  may  be  arranged,  my  own  can  only  be  literary 
and  independent.  I  could  not  forgive  myself  if 
I  had  not  made  my  mark  at  fifty.  At  Geneva 
and  in  Switzerland,  one  finds  neither  resources 
nor  the  stimulus  of  rivalry.  But  if  I  am  to 
succeed  in  France,  I  must  produce  a  remarkable 

148 


Return  to  Coppet 

work ;  and  my  present  manner  of  life  makes 
that  impossible.  Then  Weimar  is  the  place — 
Weimar,  a  library,  as  much  pleasure  as  is 
necessary  to  prevent  me  from  feeling  that  I  am 
deprived  of  pleasure,  order  in  my  fortune,  and 
for  once  in  my  life,  repose." 

In  that  mood  he  arrived  at  Weimar,  where 
"the  first  moments  were  convulsive."  It  was 
his  pride  that  he  shared  Madame  de  Stael's 
grief,  instead  of  offering  platitudinous  consola- 
tions ;  and  presently  he  and  she  and  the  children 
and  Schlegel  and  Sismondi  drove  back  together 
to  Coppet,  Madame  Necker  de  Saussure  bringing 
Albert  de  Stael  to  meet  them  at  Zurich.  "Her 
condition,"  he  writes,  "  is  fearful.  A  strange  com- 
bination :  this  deep,  agonising,  and  genuine  grief 
which  overwhelms  her,  joined  with  her  suscepti- 
bility to  distractions,  her  incorrigible  character, 
which  leaves  her  all  her  natural  weaknesses,  all 
her  amour-propre,  and  all  her  need  for  activity." 

Her  need  for  activity  found  satisfaction  at  first 
in  the  writing  of  her  father's  life — a  sketch  which 
her  friends  considered  the  best  of  all  her  works  ; 
but  that,  after  a  little  while,  did  not  suffice.  She 
filled  her  house  with  people,  and  talked,  and  talked, 
and  talked.  She  sought  to  obtain  leave  to  return 
to  Paris,  while  planning  a  journey  to  Italy  as  an 
alternative. 

Joseph  Bonaparte,  as  before,  was  doing  his 
best  for  her.  He. was  at  that  time  a  general  on 
duty  at  the   Boulogne  camp,   whence   he  wrote 

149 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

urging  her  to  patience,  since  no  one  would 
succeed  if  he  did  not.  She  postponed  the  Italian 
excursion,  and  stayed  on  at  Coppet,  hoping 
against  hope.  "The  rumour,"  she  wrote  to 
Joseph,  "  has  been  spread  that  the  Emperor 
means  to  recall  all  the  exiles  on  the  day  of  his 
coronation.  He  would,  by  this  step,  give  the 
occasion  a  solemnity  superior  to  that  which  it 
will  derive  from  all  the  pomps  and  ceremonies. 
I  mean  to  stay  here  until  the  15th  of  November 
on  the  strength  of  this  feeble  hope."  She  waited, 
but  the  hope  was  not  fulfilled — for  a  reason  which 
she  never  knew.     The  facts  were  these. 

The  First  Consul  had  lately  become  Emperor, 
and  appointments  in  the  Imperial  household  were 
being  made.  The  report  had  reached  Madame 
de  Stael  that  one  of  them  was  likely  to  be  accepted 
by  her  previous  lover  and  present  friend,  M.  de 
Narbonne.  She  wrote  to  him  to  say  that  she 
hoped  the  report  was  untrue ;  that  she  thought  it 
most  unbecoming  that  members  of  the  aristocracy 
of  France  should  stoop  to  be  "the  men-servants 
and  chambermaids  of  the  bourgeois  and  bourgeoises 
of  Corsica."  Fearing  lest  her  letter  should  be 
opened  in  the  post,  she  entrusted  it  to  a  certain 

M.  S ,  who  promised  to  deliver  it  by  hand. 

But,  as  it  happened,  M.  S was  a  French  spy. 

'He  delivered  the  letter  at  the  Department  of 
Police,  and  Fouch^  showed  it  to  Napoleon.  It 
was  with  difficulty  that  the  Emperor  was  dis- 
suaded from  throwing  the  writer  into  prison  for 

150 


Benjamin  Constant  Drags  at  his  Chain 

her  insolent  words ;  and  he  was  absolutely 
resolved  that  she  should  not  return  to  France, 
where  the  Pope  was  coming  to  crown  him.  At 
last,  therefore,  Madame  de  Stael  got  tired  of 
waiting,  and  set  out  for  Italy.  "  I  don't  know," 
wrote  Rosalie  de  Constant  to  her  brother  Charles, 
"  what  she  is  going  to  do  there,  unless  she  expects 
to  take  the  Pope's  place  during  his  absence." 

That  was  towards  the  end  of  1804,  about  six 
months  after  the  sorrowful  return  from  Germany. 
During  all  that  period  Benjamin  Constant  had 
been  near  her — sometimes  staying  in  her  house, 
and  at  other  times  visiting  Geneva  and  Lausanne 
— a  prisoner  dragging  at  his  chain.  We  must 
turn  again  to  his  Diary  for  the  record  of  the 
happenings  that  mattered  most  to  both  of  them  ; 
but  we  must  first  try  to  realise  his  singular 
position  at  the  time  when  he  made  the  strange 
confessions  which  are  to  follow. 

He  was  thirty-seven.  He  had  behind  him  a 
past  that  had  been  alternately  brilliant  and  dis- 
solute. He  had  been  a  great  personage  in 
politics,  and  now  he  was  an  exile  in  effect  if 
not  in  name.  Paris  was  indeed  open  to  him  if 
he  chose  to  go  there,  as  he  sometimes  did ;  but 
he  belonged  to  an  extinguished  Opposition,  and 
his  political  part  was,  for  the  time  being,  over. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  his  strong  desire 
for  the  literary  life,  he  could  not  settle  down  to 
it  with  Gibbon's  calm  contentment.  His  past 
forbade.     He  had  accustomed  himself  to  be  in 

151 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

love.  Women  had  meant  so  much  to  him  from 
of  old  that  they  were  still  necessary  to  him  even 
when  he  thought  that  he  was  tired  of  them.  The 
idea  of  marriage  haunted  him ;  it  was  only  the 
idea  of  marriage  with  any  given  woman  that 
was  intolerable.  So  he  was  doomed  to  live  in 
indecision,  drawn  this  way  and  that,  finding  it 
much  easier  to  form  new  liaisons  than  to  break 
with  old  ones,  reluctant  to  give  pain,  yet  always 
giving  it,  distressed  at  his  failure  to  give  his  life 
any  sort  of  sentimental  continuity,  wearing  a 
mask  of  gay  cynicism,  yet  always,  at  bottom,  a 
"  self  -  tortured  sophist."  Such  was  the  man. 
His  story  will  be  best  told  in  his  own  words. 
The  Journal  unhappily  is  not  dated ;  but  the 
extracts  which  follow  all  belong  to  the  six  months 
succeeding  the  return  to  Coppet.  We  hear  in 
them  the  rumblings  of  the  coming  storm. 

"  I  go  to  Rolle  to  see  my  aunt,  Madame  de 
Nassau.  She  is  a  woman  of  much  intelligence, 
and  greatly  attached  to  me ;  but  the  surrounding 
atmosphere  has  weighed  upon  her.  She  has 
adopted  all  its  prejudices,  so  that  there  is  a  kind 
of  constraint  between  us  which  I  only  get  over 
by  means  of  pleasantries.  I  think,  however,  I 
shall  succeed  in  acquiring  a  reputation  for  good- 
ness of  heart  which  will  enable  me  to  arrange 
my  life  without  having  all  the  world  on  my  back. 
What  a  task  life  is  when  one  has  begun  it  badly, 
and  what  a  bore  when  one  does  not  conduct  it 
regularly ! " 

152 


Solitude  an  Immense  Advantage 

"  I  have  not  yet  got  my  ideas  clearly  together 
again.  It  is  impossible.  I  am  interrupted  every 
minute.  Solitude !  Solitude !  It  is  even  more 
necessary  to  my  talent  than  to  my  happiness." 

"  I  have  been  to  Rolle,  to  see  Madame  de 
Nassau,  who  is  ill.  There  is  too  much  funda- 
mental opposition  in  our  opinions  for  us  ever  to 
feel  at  our  ease  together.  ...  I  sleep  at  Lausanne. 
I  cannot  depict  my  joy  at  being  alone.  I  am 
very  fond  of  everything  at  Coppet ;  but  this 
continual  society,  this  perpetual  distraction,  tires 
and  enervates  me.  I  lose  all  my  power  for 
action  in  it,  and  say  to  myself  bitterly :  '  When 
will  it  come  to  an  end  ? ' 

"  I  have  worked  very  well.  Solitude  is  an 
immense  advantage.  But  what  a  society  is  that 
of  Lausanne !  I  should  die  in  it.  My  cousin 
Rosalie  is  a  good  creature,  but  sour-tempered, 
and  skilled  in  the  art  of  saying  the  sort  of  thing 
that  displeases  one  coldly,  and  as  if  she  did  not 
perceive  what  she  was  doing.  A  sad  gift !  But 
she  is  a  hunchback,  and  still  an  old  maid  at 
forty-five  !     Can  one  expect  her  to  be  gentle  ?  " 

"Dinner  at  's  with  Auguste.  ...  I  must 

arrange  my  life  in  the  course  of  1804  with 
regularity  and  independence.  It  is  too  bad  to 
have  neither  the  pleasure  to  which  one  sacrifices 
one's  dignity,  nor  the  dignity  to  which  one 
sacrifices  one's  pleasure." 

"  Dinner  at  Severy's.  Unpretending  and 
graceful  mediocrity.  I  am  tired  of  my  solitude 
here,   but   I   do  not  want  to  get  married   here. 

153 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

My  heart  is  too  old  for  fresh  liaisons.     I  speak 
to  no  one  except  with  the  tips  of  my  lips." 

"  Having  received  no  letters  from  Coppet,  and 
no  invitation  to  return  there,  I  have  conceived  a 
prodigious  desire  to  do  so.  The  fact  is  that, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  heart,  mind,  and  self- 
abandonment,  I  am  not  well  off  anywhere  but 
there.  The  other  people  whom  I  meet  are  as 
much  strangers  to  me  as  the  trees  and  the  rocks." 

"  The  evening  ended  with  a  discussion  between 
Schlegel  and  Madame  de  Stael  on  the  genius 
of  conversation.  It  seems  a  singular  way  of 
educating  a  tutor.  It  is  very  tiresome  for  the 
spectators  to  see  them  planted  in  front  of  each 
other,  Schlegel  expressing  his  contempt  for 
society,  and  she  belauding  herself  for  her  conversa- 
tional gifts.  A  reciprocal  panegyric,  both  of  them 
praising  themselves  at  the  expense  of  the  other." 

"Went  to  Geneva,  and  called  on  the  Mes- 
demoiselles  de  Sellon.  Saw  Amelie  Fabri  again. 
She  is  as  muddy-complexioned,  as  lively,  as 
wide-awake  as  ever.  How  I  should  have  hated 
her  if  they  had  succeeded  in  getting  me  to  marry 
her!  Yet,  in  reality,  she  is  very  amiable.  It  is 
my  bad  luck  always  to  find  something  impossible 
in  every  woman  whom  I  think  of.  marrying. 
Charlotte  de  Hardenberg  was  tiresome  and 
romantic ;  Madame  Lindsay  ^  was  forty  and  had 

^  She  is  mentioned  in  Chateaubriand's  MSmoires  d^Outre- 
tombe :  "  Mrs.  Lindsay,  a  lady  of  Irish  descent,  with  a  material 
mind  and  a  somewhat  snappish  humour,  an  elegant  figure  and 
attractive  features,  was  gifted  with  nobility  of  soul  and  elevation  of 
character :  the  Emigrants  of  quality  spent  their  evenings  by  the 
fireside  of  the  last  of  the  Ninons." 


How  to  Master  Life 

two  illegitimate  children ;  Madame  de  Stael,  who 
understands  me  better  than  any  of  them,  will  not 
be  satisfied  with  friendship  when  I  can  no  longer 
offer  her  love.  This  poor  Am^lie  who  wants  me, 
at  thirty-two,  has  no  fortune,  and  certain  ridiculous 
idiosyncrasies  which  age  has  confirmed  in  her ; 
Antoinette,  who  is  twenty,  has  a  fortune,  and  is 
not  absurd,  is  common  in  appearance  and  has 
nothing  French  about  her." 

"In  the  evening  a  sad  and  bitter  conversation 
with  Pussy.^  She  is  profoundly  unhappy,  and 
thinks  it  is  the  business  of  others  to  relieve  her 
sorrow,  as  if  the  first  condition  of  not  being 
overwhelmed  by  life  were  not  to  master  it,  and 
make  use  of  all  one's  own  inward  resources. 
What  can  others  do  against  your  agitation  and 
your  coniradictory  desires  ?  Against  your  desire 
for  a  brilliant  place  in  the  world,  of  which  you 
are  enamoured  because  you  only  see  the  externals 
of  it ;  against  your  coquetry,  which  is  afraid  of 
old  age ;  against  your  vanity,  which  makes  you 
seek  to  be  conspicuous,  while  your  character  is 
incapable  of  facing  the  annoyances  which  one 
always  provokes  when  one  seeks  to  shine? 
What !  You  do  not  want  to  suffer,  and  yet  you 
spread  your  wings,  and  brave  the  gales,  and  dash 
yourself  against  the  trees,  and  break  yourself 
against  the  rocks.  I  can  do  nothing  to  help  you 
here.  Until  you  furl  your  sails,  until  you  recog- 
nise that  any  settled  situation  is  better  than  this 
perpetual  disturbance,  there  is  no  hope  for  you." 

"  Madame  de   Stael  shows  me  a  curious  col- 
^  Madame  de  Stael. 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

lection  of  letters  written  to  Madame  Necker.  .  .  . 
Those  from  Gibbon  are  affected  and  ridiculous 
through  the  contrast  between  his  love  for  Madame 
Necker  and  his  ponderous,  cold,  and  precious 
style.  Thus,  after  having  written  to  her  that  the 
happiness  of  his  life  would  be  to  possess  her,  he 
concludes  by  saying  that  he  is,  with  a  particular 
consideration,  her  most  obedient  humble  servant." 

"This  evening-  Schleo^el  was  hurt  because 
Madame  de  Stael  teased  him ;  and,  as  she  never 
gets  tired  of  talking,  she  wanted  to  recommence 
an  explanation  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
reserving  until  after  this  explanation  a  discussion 
of  matters  which  have  already  been  discussed  a 
hundred  times.  I  was  dying  to  go  to  sleep,  and 
I  had  a  pain  in  my  eyes,  but  I  had  to  obey  her. 
I  have  never  seen  a  better  woman,  more  gracious 
or  more  devoted,  but  I  have  never  known  one  who, 
without  being  aware  of  it,  is  more  continually 
exigent,  who  more  completely  absorbs  the  life  of 
everyone  near  her,  or  who,  with  all  her  qualities,  has 
a  more  positive  personality.  All  one's  life — one's 
minutes,  one's  hours,  one's  years — must  be  at  her 
disposition  ;  and  when  she  does  let  herself  go,  then 
it  is  a  noise  like  all  the  thunderstorms  and  all  the 
earthquakes.  She  is  a  spoilt  child — that  sums 
her  up." 

"  A  gay  supper  with  the  Prince  de  Belmonte. 
Remained  alone  with  Madame  de  Stael,  and  the 
storm  gradually  rose.  There  was  a  frightful 
scene,  lasting  till  three  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
about  my  lack  of  sensibility,  my  unworthiness  of 
her  confidence,  and  the  failure  of  my  sentiments 

156 


Literary  Glory  Preferred  to  Happiness 

to  correspond  with  my  actions.  Alas !  I  should 
be  very  glad  if  I  could  avoid  wearisome  lamenta- 
tions relating  not  to  genuine  misfortunes,  but  to 
the  universal  laws  of  nature  and  the  advent  of 
old  age.  I  should  be  very  glad  if  I,  a  man,  had 
not  to  endure  the  vexations  of  a  woman  whose 
youth  is  leaving  her.  I  wish  she  would  not  ask 
me  for  love  after  ten  years  of  intimacy,  wlien  we 
are  both  nearly  forty  years  of  age,  and  when  I 
have  told  her,  at  least  two  hundred  times,  that, 
as  for  love,  I  have  no  more  of  it  to  give  her — a 
declaration  which  I  have  never  withdrawn  except 
for  the  purpose  of  calming  fits  of  pain  and  rage 
which  frightened  me.  If  my  sentiments  do  not 
correspond  with  my  actions,  I  wish  she  would 
cease  to  ask  me  for  actions  to  which  she  attaches 
so  little  importance.  I  must,  however,  separate 
my  life  from  hers,  remaining  her  friend,  or  else 
disappearing  from  the  earth." 

"  I  have  read  over  my  reflections  on  marriage. 
I  adhere  to  them,  and  I  will  get  married  this 
winter." 

"When  I  consider  my  fatigued  constitution, 
my  taste  for  the  country,  for  solitude,  and  for 
work,  marriage  seems  to  be  necessary  for  me. 
Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  this  conviction,  I  prefer 
literary  glory  to  happiness,  though  without 
cherishing  many  illusions  as  to  the  value  of  such 
glory.  But  if  I  were  happy  in  the  vulgar  fashion, 
I  should  despise  myself." 

"  At  this  season  seventeen  years  ago  I  was 
rambling  alone  through  the  English  provinces.  It 
was  in  that  journey  that   I   first  discovered  the 

157 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

immense  happiness  of  solitude.     I  am  far  enough 
away  from  it  now." 

"  A  letter  to-day  from  Madame  Talma,  who  is 
coming  to  Soleure.  I  will  go  and  see  her. 
What  happiness ! " 

"  My  situation  is  insoluble  ;  there  is  no  planning 
out  my  life.  I  must  live  from  day  to  day  and 
work  as  much  as  possible.  That  is  ail  that  is 
left  to  me." 

"  I  have  seen  the  young  Laure  d'Arlens.  If  I 
had  to  get  married,  I  would  marry  a  girl  of 
sixteen.  There  would  be  a  clear  gain  of  the 
three  or  four  years  during  which  a  woman  of 
that  age  cannot  live  an  independent  life.  Very 
likely  it  comes  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end,  but 
at  least  one  enjoys  this  moment  of  respite.  A 
clear  gain  there !  Then  there  is  the  chance  that 
one  may  influence  the  character  that  is  in  course 
of  being  moulded  and  turn  it  in  the  direction  that 
one  desires.  I  do  not  say  that  the  chance  is  a 
good  one,  but  when  one  marries  a  woman  whose 
character  is  already  formed,  there  is  no  longer 
any  room  for  doubt  on  the  matter.  The  char- 
acter already  exists,  and  you  do  not  even  know 
what  it  is.  In  the  case  of  a  girl  of  sixteen  one 
watches  the  character  while  in  course  of  formation, 
and,  seeing  the  enemy  immediately  on  his  arrival, 
you  can  take  your  precautions  better." 

"  Ten  years  ago  to-day  I  was  in  Germany, 
alone,  taking  proceedings  against  my  wife,  treated 
with  injustice  by  the  majority  of  my  friends.  .  .  . 
And  yet,  in  the  midst  of  all  that,  1  was  perfectly 

IS8 


The  Pretence  of  Friendship 

happy.  My  means  of  happiness  were  perfectly 
simple.  I  was  alone,  and  I  was  at  work.  Every 
day  as  it  dawned  promised  me  a  sequence  of  quiet 
hours  which  nothing  could  disturb.  It  is  the 
period  of  my  life  which  I  now  find  the  greatest 
pleasure  in  recalling.  Since  then  I  have  some- 
times enjoyed  success  and  sometimes  suffered 
reverse,  but  calm,  solitude,  and  independence  I 
have  never  had. 

"  Under  the  influence  of  the  people  about  me 
I  was  weak  enough  to  marry  an  ugly  woman 
without  fortune,  older  than  myself,  and,  to  com- 
plete the  list  of  her  attractions,  of  violent  and 
capricious  temper.  The  wrongs  she  did  me 
were  of  the  kind  that  cannot  be  forgiven ;  but, 
instead  of  seeking  to  punish  her  or  to  avenge 
myself,  I  only  asked  for  my  freedom.  Whence 
an  outburst  of  all  manner  of  wrath  against  me. 
I  was  unwilling  to  allow  my  wife's  enemies  to 
dishonour  her  at  their  fancy  under  pretence  of 
proving  their  friendship  for  me.  I  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  motto  of  friends  who 
serve  you  is  always :  *  If  you  do  not  allow  us 
to  defend  you  at  the  expense  of  others,  and  to 
make  up  for  the  good  which  we  do  to  you  by  the 
greater  evil  which  we  do  to  our  enemies,  then  we 
shall  not  defend  you.' 

"  Through  my  failure  to  realise  this  condition 
which  friendship  attaches  to  its  services,  I  have 
done  myself  much  wrong." 


159 


CHAPTER   XIV 

The  Diary  continues — Benjamin  Constant  at  Coppet — Attempt  of 
his  relatives  to  find  him  a  wife — He  goes  to  Lyons  to  see 
Madame  de  Stael  off  to  Italy. 

The  Diary  continues.  Owing  to  the  state  in 
which  the  manuscript  was  found,  it  is  impossible 
to  be  quite  positive  that  every  entry  has  been 
printed  in  its  proper  place  ;  but  the  story  which  it 
unfolds  is  not  one  in  which  dates  matter  very 
much.  It  is  important  to  know  that  certain  things 
happened — not  to  know  whether  they  happened 
on  a  Monday  or  a  Saturday.  The  progress  to 
the  crisis  was  not,  in  any  case,  dramatically 
continuous.  The  crisis  was  to  come  suddenly — 
through  a  woman — but  not  yet.  In  the  meantime 
Benjamin  Constant  drifted  to  and  fro,  suffering, 
as  we  can  see,  a  far  keener  mental  agony  than  the 
woman  who  complained  of  the  waning  of  his  love 
for  her.  She,  having  paid  her  tribute  to  her 
father's  memory,  was  preparing  a  fresh  triumph — 
preparing  to  conquer  Rome  and  Naples  and 
Milan,  as  she  had  conquered  Weimar  and  Berlin. 
He,  unable  to  live  either  with  her  or  without  her, 
was  deploring  his  own  weakness,  toying  with 
other  amours,  toying  with  the  idea  of  marriage, 
longing  for  solitude,  yet  unable  to  endure  it,  the 

i6o 


Visit  to  Madame  Talma 

miserable  victim  of  a  divided  mind.     Let  his  Diary 
speak  again. 

"  To-day  Madame  de  Stael  is  at  Geneva. 
Bonstetten,  Schlegel,  Sismondi,  and  I  dined  like 
schoolboys  whose  head  master  is  away.  Strange 
woman  that  she  is  !  Her  domination  is  inexplic- 
able yet  very  real  over  everyone  near  her.  If 
only  she  could  govern  herself,  she  would  be  able 
to  govern  the  world." 

"  I  start  to  see  Madame  Talma  ^  at  Soleure." 

"  The  pleasure  of  seeing  Madame  Talma  at 
Soleure  was  spoiled  by  the  serious  condition  of 
her  son.  I  fancy  she  is  trying  to  deceive  herself, 
as  so  many  do.  .  .  .  She  needs  excitement,  and  to 
deaden  her  feelings.  Happy  is  he  who  can  fall 
back  upon  himself,  and  does  not  ask  for  happiness, 
whose  life  is  in  his  own  thoughts,  and  who  waits 
for  death  without  exhausting  himself  in  vain 
endeavours  to  soften  or  embellish  his  life." 

'*  I  never  cease  thinking  of  my  situation.  I  am 
agitated  and  distracted  by  a  miserable  weakness 
of  will.  There  never  was  anything  so  absurd  as 
my  indecision.  Now  I  incline  to  marriage,  now 
to  solitude ;  now  I  want  to  live  in  Germany,  now 
in  France ;  and  I  always  hesitate  because,  in 
reality,  there  is  nothing  that  I  can  do  without.  If 
I  have  not  got  rid  of  all  these  embarrassments  in 
the  course  of  the  next  six  months — embarrassments 
which  only  exist  in  my  own  imagination — I  am 
no  better  than  an  imbecile,  and  will  no  longer  take 
the  trouble  to  listen  to  my  own  maunderings." 

^  The  divorced  wife  of  the  actor. 
L  i6l 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"A  letter  from  Madame  Dutertre.^  Here  is 
another  who,  having  a  lively  love  of  freedom, 
having  succeeded  in  reconquering  it  at  the  age  of 
twenty-five,  and  possessing  in  addition  a  consider- 
able fortune,  is  in  a  hurry  to  spoil  her  life  over 
again  by  contracting  a  fresh  tie  which  to-day 
oppresses  her  as  much  as,  and  more  than,  the  first. 
One  only  meets  people  who  do  not  know  how  to 
make  proper  use  of  their  advantages.  The  reason 
is  that  the  enemy  of  man  is  within  him." 

'*  Received  a  letter  from  Madame  Talma.  She 
is  the  person  whom  I  love,  not  indeed  the  most 
passionately,  but  with  the  least  admixture  of  other 
feelings,  and  the  least  regret.  Her  son  is  better. 
When  he  was  so  ill  at  Soleure,  Madame  Talma 
was  a  singular  example  of  the  fanatical  attachment 
with  which  people  cling  to  the  opinions  of  their 
youth.  Brought  up  as  an  unbeliever,  this  mother 
was  ardently  anxious  that  her  son  should  not 
believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  I  fancy 
she  would  have  argued  with  him  when  he  was 
dying  if  he  had  demanded  consolations  of  that 
kind.  And  yet  Madame  Talma  is  a  good  woman, 
and  all  her  affections  are  concentrated  upon  this 
child.     Inexplicable  human  nature!" 

"Called  upon  Mile  Bontemps.  I  fear  I 
have  made  but  a  poor  response  to  her  affectionate 
interest  in  me.  If  only  I  knew  what  I  wanted, 
I  should  know  better  what  I  am  doing." 

"  Twenty  years  ago  to-day  (October  9th)  I  was 
in  Scotland,  fairly  happy,  alternately  living  with 

1  NSe  von  Hardenberg,  and  married,  en  premieres  noces,  to 
M.  von  Marenholz. 

162 


Madame  de  Charriere's  Last  Years 

some  friends  and  boarding  with  an  excellent 
family  in  the  country,  three  leagues  from  Edin- 
burgh. Several  of  these  friends  are  dead ;  the 
dearest  of  them  is  mad.  A  new  generation  has 
grown  up  in  the  family,  and  the  new  generation 
does  not  know  me.     Such  is  life  !  " 

*'  Madame  de  Stael  is  in  a  good  mood,  gentle 
and  amiable.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  corner  in 
her  character  which  I  do  not  like.  I  mean  an 
absolute  want  of  pride,  and  a  need  of  always 
standing  well  with  the  authorities — a  need  which 
contrasts  strangely  with  the  very  little  authority 
which  she  exercises  over  herself,  and  causes 
continual  inconsistency  in  her  conduct,  with  the 
result  that  every  party  in  turn  suspects  her  of 
intrigue  and  bad  faith.  She  is  in  consequence 
guilty  of  a  kind  of  duplicity  which  is  harmful  not 
only  to  her  own  dignity  and  success,  but  also  to 
that  of  her  friends." 

"  Pussy  Cat  is  in  a  bad  temper  because  I  will 
not  sit  up  late  at  night.  It  seems  clear  that  I 
shall  have  to  get  married  in  order  to  be  able  to 
go  to  bed  in  decent  time. 

"  I  received  a  visit  to-day  from  Henrietta 
Monachon,  who  drew  me  a  graphic  picture  of  her 
last  years  with  Madame  de  Charriere. 

**  Seven  years  have  passed  since  I  last  saw  her ; 
ten  since  all  relation  between  us  ended.  How 
easily  then  I  broke  all  ties  that  tired  me !  How 
sure  I  was  that  I  could  form  others  when  I  chose ! 
What  a  sense  I  had  that  my  life  was  my  property, 
and  what  a  difference  ten  years  have  made  to  my 
feelings !     Everything  seems  precarious  and  about 

163 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

to  escape  from  me.  That  which  I  have  does  not 
make  me  happy.  I  have  passed  the  age  at  which 
gaps  can  be  filled,  and  I  tremble  to  renounce 
anything  whatever,  not  feeling  that  I  have  the 
power  to  put  anything  else  in  its  place." 

"  Madame  Du  Deffand  used  to  say  to  M.  de 
Pont-de-Veyle,  '  We  have  been  friends  for  forty 
years.  Is  not  that  because  we  do  not  love  each 
other  very  much  ? '     That  is  my  own  history." 

"  Sismondi,  with  whom  I  take  a  walk,  re- 
proaches me  for  taking  too  little  interest  in  him 
and  in  the  world  in  general.  The  wretched  man 
knows  nothing  about  my  position,  and  how  it 
prevents  me  from  disposing  freely  of  my  life,  with 
the  result  that  I  am  a  shadow  running  with  other 
shadows,  and  have  no  power  of  making  plans  for 
the  future." 

"At  dinner  there  were  several  guests.  I  was 
very  melancholy,  and  yet  I  jested  a  good  deal. 
This  contrast  is  usual  with  me.  At  supper  too 
there  were  a  good  many  people.  What  a  melan- 
choly thing  is  conversation !  Even  conversation 
which  turns  upon  interesting  subjects  leads  to  so 
little." 

**  Out  in  the  evening  and  meet  some  amiable 
women,  but  fate  is  obstinately  unkind  to  me.  In 
the  person  whom  I  could  marry,  and  should  like 
to  marry,  there  is  always  something  that  does  not 
suit  me.  Meanwhile  my  life  advances.  I  admit 
that  it  will  be  all  the  same  when  it  is  over." 

**A  walk  with  Sismondi,  who  reproaches  me 
for  never  speaking  seriously.     It  is  true  that,  in 

164 


Schlegel's  Amour-Propre 

my  present  mood,  I  take  too  little  interest  in 
persons  and  things  to  be  convincing.  I  am 
satisfied,  therefore,  to  be  silent  or  to  jest.  That 
amuses  me  and  deadens  my  feelings.  The  best 
gift  with  which  Heaven  has  endowed  me  is  that 
of  being  amused  at  myself.  I  read  Sismondi  my 
Introduction.^  He  was  much  impressed  by  it.  He 
is  not  at  all  a  brilliant  man,  but  he  has  very  just 
principles  and  very  pure  intentions.  Only  he 
works  very  little,  and  goes  out  into  society,  where 
he  feels  flattered  to  be  received.  He  does  not 
dream  that  it  is  only  his  talent  that  has  opened 
the  doors  of  society  to  him,  and  that  he  is 
sacrificing  to  the  enjoyment  of  a  first  success  the 
means  of  making  others." 

*'  Here  is  a  pleasing  story  of  Schlegel's  amour- 
propre.  One  day  he  read  a  letter  which  he  had 
addressed  to  one  of  his  friends.  A  little  while 
afterwards  I  learnt  that  this  friend  was  dead.  I 
told  Schlegel  this,  and  he  replied :  *  Yes,  he  is 
dead,  but  he  had  time  to  receive  my  letter  before 
he  died.'  As  if  this  friend  had  been  brought  into 
the  world  to  read  Schlegel's  letter,  and  having 
read  it,  might  depart  in  peace ! " 

"  I  have  happily  escaped  from  a  party  given  by 
the  Duchess  of  Courland  to  the  Prefect,  with 
music  on  the  Lake. 

"  I  have  again  seen  Am^lie  Fabri.  It  is  a 
great  pity  that  she  is  old,  muddy-coloured,  and 
thin.  If  she  were  ten  years  younger  I  should 
prefer  her  to  any  other  woman.  I  could  have 
made  a  charming  person  of  her,  on  condition  that 
^  To  the  History  of  Religion. 
165 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

I  were  already  what  I  have  now  grown  to  be.  Her 
faults  are  due  simply  and  solely  to  the  isolation 
in  which  she  has  lived.  Everyone  is  amused  by 
her  lively  wit,  and,  seeing  people  laugh  at  what 
she  says,  she  concludes  that  whatever  makes 
people  laugh  is  good  to  say. 

"It  was  a  year  ago  to-day  that  Madame  de  Stael 
arrived  in  Paris  against  my  wish  and  against  the 
advice  of  all  her  friends  whom  she  had  not  so 
dominated  as  to  oblige  them  to  speak  against 
their  consciences.     The  consequences  were  sad." 

"  An  argument  with  Schlegel  on  French  tragedy 
— bizarre  and  monotonous.  His  notions  are  often 
as  grotesque  as  a  madman's." 

"  Dinner  with  Madame  Necker.^  She  perceives 
in  others  only  the  greater  or  less  attention  that 
they  pay  to  her.  A  person  whom  it  is  diverting 
to  forget  by  reason  of  the  amazement  and  anger 
which  the  forgetfulness  causes  her.  She  does  not 
think  that  it  is  possible  to  think  of  anything  but 
her.  Still  that  does  not  make  her  ridiculous,  for 
she  has  a  noble  though  egotistic  character,  a 
delicate  though  artificial  wit,  and  a  distinguished 
though  withered  appearance." 

"  Schlegel's  brother  has  arrived.  He  is  a 
globular  little  man,  extraordinarily  fat,  with  a 
pointed  nose  issuing  from  two  shining  cheeks, 
and  underneath  this  pointed  nose  a  mouth  that 
smiles  with  honeyed  sweetness ;  fine  eyes,  a  sub- 
dued air,  especially  when  he  is  not  speaking,  and 
an  icy  air  when  he  is  listening.  His  principles 
are  as  absurd  as  those  of  his  brother." 

^  Madame  de  Stael's  cousin,  Madame  Necker  de  Saussure. 
i66 


Confused  Recollections 

"  Madame  de  Stael  gave  me  to  read  a  frag- 
ment of  her  work  on  her  father.  I  could  not 
restrain  my  tears.  There  is  a  sensibiHty  in  it 
the  more  real  because  it  is  free  from  all  affecta- 
tion. Will  they  laugh  at  it  in  Paris?  I  record 
my  impresson  of  it  here  that  it  may  not  change." 

"  Dined  with  the  Duchess  of  Courland.  To 
see  her  I  should  say  that  it  only  depended  upon 
myself  to  make  her  think  me  very  agreeable.  I 
bore  myself  so  much  in  Society  that  it  is  difficult 
for  me  to  believe  that  I  can  please.  I  am  ill. 
Everyone  notices  how  changed  I  am.  I  shall 
not  be  sorry  when  it  is  all  over.  What  have  I 
to  expect  from  life  ? " 

"This  is  the  day  of  my  birth — thirty-seven 
years  ago.  The  best  part  of  my  life  is  over. 
Even  if  nature  is  kind,  there  can  only  remain, 
free  from  infirmities,  about  half  the  period  that  I 
have  already  lived.  My  life  has  only  left  me 
very  confused  recollections.  I  am  hardly  any 
more  interested  in  myself  than  in  other  people. 
I  know  that,  up  to  the  age  of  fourteen,  the  object 
of  great  affection  on  the  part  of  my  father,  on  the 
one  hand  treated  with  great  severity,  but  en- 
couraged, on  the  other,  in  the  wildest  vanity, 
I  filled  all  those  about  me  with  admiration 
for  my  precocious  talents,  and  distrust  of  my 
violent,  quarrelsome  disposition.  I  had  no  mother. 
They  mistook  for  naughtiness  what  was  only 
amour-propre.  From  fourteen  to  sixteen  I  was 
in  a  German  University,  left  a  great  deal  too 
much  to  my  own  devices,  winning  successes 
which  turned  my  head,  and  committing  prodigious 
follies.     From  sixteen  to  eighteen    I   studied   at 

167 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Edinburgh,  and  there,  for  the  first  time,  acquired 
that  real  taste  for  study  which  they  had  till  then 
vainly  tried  to  instil  into  me.  But,  after  living 
for  a  year  a  well-regulated  and  tolerably  happy 
life,  I  abandoned  myself  to  the  passion  of  gambling, 
and  lived  in  a  very  agitated,  and,  I  will  add,  a 
very  miserable  manner.  I  next  went  to  Paris, 
with  only  my  own  sense  to  guide  me — which  it 
did  pretty  badly.  From  eighteen  to  twenty  I  was 
always  in  love,  sometimes  loved  in  return,  often 
tactless  and  giving  myself  over  to  acts  of  theatrical 
violence  which  must  have  been  very  amusing  to 
those  who  were  pleased  to  criticise  me.  I  then 
went  a  second  time  to  Paris,  where  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  all  the  follies  that  youth  can  think 
of,  with  the  temptations  that  Paris  provides.  At 
the  same  time,  however,  I  was  living  in  the  society 
of  men  of  letters,  in  which  to  some  extent  I  dis- 
tinguished myself  Next,  I  set  out  for  England. 
It  was  then  that  I  tasted  for  the  first  time  the 
inexpressible  delights  of  solitude.  From  twenty 
to  twenty-six  I  lived  in  Germany,  leading  a  life 
that  was  tiresome  without  actual  unhappiness, 
wasting  my  time  and  my  talents ;  and  had  it 
not  been  for  a  revolution  that  occurred  in  my  life, 
I  should  have  declined  gently  into  stupidity.  At 
twenty-seven  I  was  divorced  from  a  first  marriage 
contracted  in  Germany — I  have  already  spoken 
of  it.  At  twenty-seven  I  commenced  an  attach- 
ment that  was  to  last  for  ten  years  ;  then  came 
political  passions.  Now  I  think  I  have  reached 
a  further  stage,  for  all  that  I  desire  is  repose. 
Shall  I  obtain  it  ?  It  always  looks  as  if  it  would 
be  easy  to  obtain  something  that  one  does  not 
want ;   but  when  one  begins  to  want  the   thing 

i68 


Schlegel's  New  Religion 

that  seemed  so  easy  to  get,  then  the  difficulties 
present  themselves." 

"  I  am  every  day  more  convinced  that  one  must 
exercise  cunning  in  one's  relations  both  with  life 
and  with  men,  whether  one  wishes  to  escape  from 
one's  fellow-creatures  or  to  make  use  of  them. 
Ambition  is  not  nearly  so  mad  a  thing  as  people 
suppose ;  for  one  has  to  take  nearly  as  much 
trouble  to  be  allowed  to  live  in  peace  and  quiet- 
ness as  to  govern  the  world.  Nevertheless,  so 
far  as  I  am  concerned,  the  die  is  cast.  I  want 
to  find  a  country  in  which  one  can  sleep  in  tran- 
quillity.    Germany  is  the  place  for  me." 

"  My  aunt  hints  that  if  I  marry  she  will  show 
herself  grateful.  That  is,  in  effect,  to  promise 
me  a  fortune  four  times  as  large  as  my  own. 
Very  likely  I  shall  repent  of  not  having  said  '  yes.' 
But  *  yes '  would  be  too  much  trouble.  I  give  up 
the  idea." 

"  Schlegel  wants  to  be  the  leader  of  a  new 
religion.  Nothing  is  more  ridiculous  than  the 
plans  of  this  kind  which  men  form  because  they 
see  that  something  of  the  sort  succeeds  about 
once  every  ten  centuries.  I  cannot  deny  that  I 
have  formed  my  own.  Schlegel  says  that  in  all 
religions  there  are  mysteries.  Therefore  he  makes 
a  pretence  of  concealing  a  portion  of  his  doctrine. 
That  is  to  say,  he  shows  the  whole  of  it,  and 
conceals  the  rest." 

"  I  do  not  know  why,  but  I  have  a  presentiment, 
a  kind  of  hope,  that  Madame  de  Stael's  affairs  ^ 

^  Benjamin  Constant  was  trying  to  obtain  permission  for  Madame 
de  Stael  to  reside  in  Paris. 

169 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

will  succeed.     But  I  am  forgetting  that  it  is  only 
bad  presentiments  that  come  true." 

*'  I  am  continually  thinking  of  Weimar,  which 
would  be  a  pleasant  retreat  for  me,  if  I  can 
convince  the  people  there  that  I  have  not  come 
for  them,  but  for  their  Library." 

"  A  charming  letter  from  Madame  Talma,  and 
other  Paris  friends.  I  shall  be  delighted  to  see 
them  again — but  on  condition  that  I  stay  with 
them  as  short  a  time  as  possible. 

"  I  feel  such  a  physical  necessity  for  peace  and 
quietness,  that  if  my  present  situation  were  to  be 
prolonged,  I  should  die  of  it,  and  might  just  as 
well  hang  myself  at  once.  I  feel  that  I  must 
muster  up  the  courage  to  conquer  my  winter  for 
myself.  And  yet,  in  forming  this  project,  I  feel 
that  I  am  hard-hearted  and  unjust.  Why  should 
I  ruffle  the  affections  of  a  woman  who  loves  me  so 
well,  and  deprive  her  of  her  last  remaining  friend 
at  the  moment  when  she  has  just  lost  her  father  ?  " 

"Visited  Genthoud.  There  is  no  better  proof 
of  the  heavy  burden  of  life  than  the  spectacle  of 
elderly  persons  trying  to  pass  the  time  gaily. 
There  is  something  so  melancholy  in  this  gaiety, 
and  so  painful  in  this  resignation.  And  to  think 
that  the  end  of  the  boredom  is  death !  " 

"  Dined  with  Madame  Necker.  Brilliant  people 
are  almost  as  tedious  in  their  conversation  as  fools." 

"  Passed  the  evening  with  my  poor  Am^lie, 
and  played  piquet  with  her.  Really  she  is  not 
so  silly  as  they  say,  but  I  do  not  think  she  is  as 
amiable  as  she  tries  to  make  me  think.     Still  she 

170 


A  Vain  Struggle  against  Fate 

has  a  sort  of  gaiety  and  grace  which,  in  spite  of 
her  ugliness,  which  is  on  the  increase,  rekindles  my 
weak  sentiment  for  her,  as  often  as  I  look  at  her." 

"  It  is  announced  that  the  plague  is  spreading 
all  over  Italy.  Madame  de  Stael  cannot  go  there, 
and  so  I  am  obliged  to  remain  here.  One  would 
say  that  exile,  death,  and  the  plague  are  in  a 
conspiracy  to  keep  me  in  chains.  How  could  I 
desert  Madame  de  Stael  two  years  ago  when  she 
was  banished  ?  Or  seven  months  ago  when  she 
lost  her  father?  How  can  I  desert  her  now  that 
she  has  given  up  her  journey  ?  What  am  I  to  do 
against  fate  ?  " 

"  The  reports  of  the  plague  in  Italy  were  much 
exaggerated.  Madame  de  Stael  is  carrying  out 
her  plans,  and  I,  on  my  side,  am  going  away  too. 
How  much  time  is  lost  in  these  continual  prepara- 
tions for  departure  ! 

"Who  would  have  believed  that  the  good 
Adele  de  Sellon  would  have  put  on  such  im- 
pertinent airs  since  the  marriage  of  her  sister, 
whom  she  believes  to  be  in  high  favour?  Assuredly 
that  is  the  last  fault  that  I  should  have  suspected  in 
Adele.  But  I  believe  that  all  faults  are  latent 
in  all  women,  waiting  only  for  opportunity  to 
develop  them." 

*'  En  route  for  Poligny." 

**  Arrive  at  Brevens,  where  I  find  my  father,  a 
little  aged,  but  in  good  health." 

**  I  set  out  again  from  D6le.  A  regular  road  to 
walk  on — that  is  what  my  life  requires." 

"  I  arrive  at  Lyons,  where  I  rejoin  Madame  de 
Stael." 

171 


CHAPTER   XV 

Madame  de  Stael's  triumphs  in  Italy — She  "gives  performances 
in  the  character  of  woman  of  letters " — Her  relations  with 
Monti — Benjamin  Constant  in  Paris — His  relations  with 
Madame  R^camier,  Madame  Talma,  and  other  friends. 

Benjamin  Constant  had  left  Coppet  a  few  days 
before  Madame  de  Stael,  in  order  to  visit  his 
father,  who  had  married  his  housekeeper  and  got 
his  affairs  embroiled.  His  son  did  his  best  to 
deliver  him  from  the  imbroglio,  but  the  old  man 
was  barely  grateful.  He  had  become  attached 
to  his  grievances  through  habit,  and  missed  the 
sense  of  importance  which  he  derived  from  them. 
Benjamin  could  only  reflect  that,  at  least,  he  had 
tried  to  do  his  duty. 

His  meeting  with  Madame  de  Stael  at  Lyons 
was  only  for  the  purpose  of  saying  good-bye. 
He  stayed  there  a  day  or  two,  and  spent 
an  evening  with  the  family  of  his  rival,  Camille 
Jordan.  "  Ridiculous  provincials,"  was  his  verdict 
on  them ;  and  he  adds  :  "  The  party  was  amus- 
ing, thanks  to  the  folly  of  the  persons  present." 
He  meant  to  go  on  to  Weimar.  "  Either  I  am 
a  madman  or  else  I  shall  be  in  Weimar  in  three 
weeks,"  he  wrote ;  but  he  went  instead  to  his  own 
estate  at  H^rivaux,  in  Seine-et-Oise,  whence  he 

172 


Triumphal  Progress  in  Italy 

visited  Paris  from  time  to  time.  "  I  have  re- 
ceived," he  notes,  **  a  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael, 
who  finds  my  letters  melancholy,  and  inquires  what 
I  want  to  make  me  happy.  Alas !  What  I  want 
is  my  freedom,  and  that  is  exactly  what  I  am  not 
allowed  to  have.  I  am  reminded  of  the  case  of  the 
hussar  who  took  such  an  interest  in  the  prisoner 
whom  he  had  to  put  to  death  that  he  said  to  him  : 
'  Ask  me  any  favour  you  like  except  your  life.'  " 

Madame  de  Stael,  meanwhile,  had  crossed  the 
Alps,  and  was  conquering  Italy  in  her  fashion, 
as  Napoleon  had  previously  conquered  it  in  his ; 
the  Emperor  doing  nothing,  on  this  occasion,  to 
interfere  with  her  triumph.  Provided  that  she 
kept  away  from  Paris,  he  was  willing  that,  at  a 
distance  from  Paris,  she  should  be  treated  with 
consideration.  He  even  said  that,  if  she  should 
be  arrested  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  he  would 
claim  her  as  his  subject,  and  march  twenty  thousand 
men  to  her  rescue ;  while  she,  on  her  part,  was 
disposed  to  avoid  giving  unnecessary  offence. 
The  French  Government  was  in  Necker's  debt 
for  money  advanced  ;  ^  and  though  the  claim  could 
be  disputed  on  the  ground  that  Necker's  name 
had  been  on  the  list  of  emigr^Sy  whose  property 
had  passed  to  the  State,  there  was  a  chance  that 
Napoleon  would  settle  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  debt  was  not  discharged  until  after  the 
Bourbon  Restoration ;  but  the  hope  of  payment 

^  It  was  advanced  in  the  reign  of  Louis  xvi. — not  to  the  King 
personally,  but  to  the  public  Exchequer. 


Mad  .me  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

had,  for  the  time  being,  a  quieting  effect  upon 
Madame  de  Stael's  demeanour. 

Her  companions  upon  her  journey  were  her 
children,  Schlegel,  and  Sismondi.  The  last-named 
quitted  her  to  visit  Florence  and  the  Comtesse 
d' Albany  —  Alfieri's  widow,  formerly  the  mis- 
tress of  the  Young  Pretender,  with  whom  he 
afterwards  carried  on  a  long  and  interesting 
correspondence.  Schlegel  remained  with  her 
throughout.  We  have  met  him  already  in  the 
character  of  her  children's  preceptor ;  but  it  is 
said  that  he  also  had  higher  pretensions,  which 
Madame  de  Stael  did  not  encourage,  giving  him 
only  her  friendship,  whereas  he  aspired  to  her  love. 
She  distributed  friendship  as  freely  as  charitable 
organisations  distribute  coals  and  blankets,  so 
that  there  is  nothing  inherently  improbable  in 
the  supposition  —  to  which,  indeed,  Benjamin 
Constant's  dislike  of  Schlegel  may  be  deemed 
to  give  further  support.  His  manners  were  rather 
bad  than  good.  The  stock  story  told  against 
him  is  that  he  insisted  on  addressing  Madame  de 
Stael  in  public  as  chere  amie,  in  order  to  make  it 
clear  to  the  company  that  he  was  no  ordinary 
pedagogue.  Be  that  as  it  may,  however,  he  was 
an  exceptionally  competent  guide  to  the  art 
treasures  and  ruins  of  Rome. 

How  far  Madame  de  Stael  was  susceptible  to 
Italian  influences — to  what  extent  Italy  conquered 
her — we  shall  have  to  consider  presently  when 
we  speak  of  Corinne.     The  view  of  her  friends 

174 


Ji-  over  6 

effect  u|K>n 

a  her 


the   si^ 


f!>ed 

se 

is- 

he 

■m 

f  r 

•t   ncr 

is 

CXmILLE  JORDAN 

"'■• 

From  a  Painting  by  Mdlle.  0\^ey 

.reastieaf?: 

Pk4>U>  by  BrauH  CUment  eiCie 

e. 
iUble 
s,   so 
le  in 

^ 

■•m 
ie 

»^- 

cf  lO  li 

rt 


presently  when 
i-e  vkw  of  her  1 


"A  Woman  of  Letters " 

at  the  time  was  that  she  needed  them  badly,  but 
was  not  likely  to  prove  amenable.  In  matters 
of  art,  as  in  matters  of  metaphysics,  she  was  more 
prone  to  gush  than  to  understand ;  and  she  her- 
self wrote  that  sculpture  left  her  comparatively 
cold — that  a  beautiful  thought  meant  more  to  her 
than  the  most  beautiful  piece  of  statuary.  To 
those,  moreover,  who  followed  her  course,  it  may 
well  have  seemed  that  there  was  too  little  recep- 
tivity in  her  attitude.  She  went  through  Italy 
as  an  actress  struts  upon  the  boards,  losing  no 
opportunity  of  taking  the  centre  of  the  stage. 
"  She  is  giving  performances  in  the  character  of 
a  woman  of  letters,"  is  the  way  an  Italian  con- 
temporary, Chigi,  puts  it ;  and  there  must  have 
been  an  appearance  of  reason  for  his  belief  that, 
whatever  she  seemed  to  see  in  Italy,  the  spectacle 
actually  present  to  her  mental  vision  was  always 
Madame  de  Stael  surrounded  by  other  things. 

The  great  performance  was  before  the  Roman 
Arcadian  Academy,  where  ten  young  men  in 
succession  discharged  sonnets  at  her,  "like  the 
thunderbolts  of  the  Vatican,"  and  she  herself 
recited  a  poem  of  her  own  composition.  "  All 
Rome,"  she  writes,  "with  its  Princes,  Cardinals, 
etc.,  was  present.  I  spare  you  a  dozen  sonnets 
in  which  I  am  made  a  new  star."  But  Benjamin 
Constant,  when  the  news  of  the  triumph  reached 
him,  commented,  in  his  Diary,  thus  : — 

"A  letter   from    Madame   de   Stael.      She   is 
175 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

altogether  enchanted  with  her  success  at  Rome. 
Much  good  may  it  do  her!  She  has  written  a 
sonnet  on  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  has  read 
it  at  the  Arcadian  Academy.  Of  a  truth  there  is 
something  of  the  mountebank  in  this  behaviour. 
If  this  sonnet  reaches  France,  people  will  have 
a  fresh  reason  for  laughing  at  her.  They  will 
say  she  has  been  using  religion  as  a  means  to 
gain  her  ends.  How  unfortunate  is  this  ambition 
to  win  small  successes  which  has  already  cost  her 
so  much  trouble !  " 

The  conquest  of  Italy  included  the  conquest 
of  the  Italian  poet,  Vincenzo  Monti.  "  Mamma," 
wrote  the  little  Albertine  de  Stael,  "cared  for 
nothing  in  Italy  except  Monti  and  the  sea  ; "  and  it 
is  true  that  she  coupled  Monti  in  eulogy  with  Mount 
Vesuvius,  and  addressed  him  as  '' caro  Monti" 
several  times  in  the  same  letter,  saying,  "You 
were  certainly  a  friend  waiting  for  me,  not  a  new 
acquaintance ; "  and  she  invited  him,  of  course, 
to  visit  her  at  Coppet.  He  was  hardly  worthy 
of  the  enthusiasm  which  she  lavished  on  him,  for 
he  was  a  time-serving  poet,  always  ready  to  sing 
for  any  master,  whether  Italian,  French,  or 
Austrian,  who  would  give  him  a  public  appoint- 
ment ;  and,  in  spite  of  reports  that  were  circu- 
lated, there  is  no  substantial  reason  for  supposing 
that  any  relations  other  than  enthusiastic  were 
established.  At  all  events,  there  is  no  hint  to 
any  such  effect  in  Benjamin  Constant's  attitude  ; 
and  that  fact  seems  conclusive. 

176 


The  Diary  a  Faithful  Mirror 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1805  that  Madame  de 
Stael  returned  to  Coppet ;  and  the  entries  in 
Benjamin  Constant's  Diary  during  the  interval 
show  that,  though  she  thrust  herself  from  time 
to  time  into  his  thoughts,  she  did  not  by  any 
means  monopolise  them.  He  was  writing ;  he 
was  going  into  society  ;  he  was  interesting  himself 
in  other  women — the  Mrs.  Lindsay  whom  he  could 
not  marry  because,  as  he  has  told  us,  she  had 
two  illegitimate  children,  and  the  divorced  wife  of 
the  actor  Talma,  also  a  lady  of  somewhat  light 
reputation,  seeing  that  she  too  had  borne  two 
natural  children  before  her  marriage,  and  had 
given  birth  to  twins,  whom  she  named  Castor  and 
Pollux,  within  a  fortnight  of  the  ceremony.  But 
let  the  Journal  speak.  It  continues  to  be  the 
faithful  mirror  of  a  complex  and  distracted 
mind. 

"  I  was  meaning  to  dine  to-day  with  Allard. 
The  desire  for  solitude  overtook  me,  and  I  dined 
at  home.  And,  indeed,  what  should  I  have  done 
at  this  dinner  ?  I  should  have  seen  candles  which 
would  have  pained  my  eyes,  and  people  whom  I 
do  not  care  about ;  and  I  should  have  said  things 
which  I  should  afterwards  have  been  sorry  for. 
I  dined  alone,  I  said  nothing,  and  I  screened  the 
candles.     It  was  much  the  better  way." 

"  A  very  nice  letter  from    Madame  de  Stael. 

She  is  always  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  put  herself 

forward.      Agitation   and    ambition !      She   does 

not  give  the  wings  of  fortune  time  to  grow,  but 

M  177 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

plucks   them   out    feather    by   feather    to   make 
plumes  for  her  hat." 

"  How  fatal  is  the  society  of  women,  owing  to 
the  difficulty  of  resisting  them !  How  egoistical 
they  are  without  knowing  it !  How  they  sacrifice 
everything  to  the  fancy  of  the  moment !  And  to 
think  that  I  cannot  make  any  firm  resolution  be- 
cause of  my  profound  sense  of  the  brevity  of  life ! " 

"  An  absurd  dinner  at  Madame  D[utertre]'s. 
A  husband  beginning  to  be  jealous,  people  who 
talked  nothing  but  the  gossip  of  their  provincial 
towns,  and  myself  timid  in  the  midst  of  it  all,  as  if 
it  were  evidence  of  inferiority  to  find  oneself 
in  the  presence  of  the  mediocre." 

"Called  on  Madame  Dutertre.  What  a  folly 
she  committed,  and  what  a  hornet's  nest  she  fell 
into,  when  she  married  a  man  of  the  emigration  ! 
Indeed,  what  a  company  of  convicts  is  this  society 
of  provincial  tmigrSs,  who  left  their  country  after 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  of  a  bad  education  in  the 
houses  of  the  squireens,  their  fathers,  to  complete 
that  education  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  driven 
from  village  to  village,  acquiring  nothing  of  the 
military  life  but  its  coarseness  and  licence,  keep- 
ing themselves  to  themselves — keeping,  that  is  to 
say,  the  worst  company  in  the  world.  Now  that 
they  are  back  in  France,  they  are  more  ignorant, 
more  mad,  more  detestable  than  ever." 

"  I  try  to  rescue  a  fallen  woman,  but  it  is  no 
good.  There  is  a  habit  of  degradation  which 
nothing  can  efface.  How  things  of  that  sort 
teach  one  to  appreciate  a  pure  marriage,  jn  which 

178 


Necker's  Posthumous  Works 

pleasure  is  not  followed  by  disgust,  duty  and  enjoy- 
ment go  hand  in  hand,  and  she  whose  embrace 
one  quits  becomes  one's  friend,  the  companion 
of  one's  life,  and  the  partner  of  one's  thoughts 
and  interests." 

"The  Journal  de  Paris  has  attacked  the 
posthumous  works  [of  Necker]  just  published  by 
Madame  de  Stael.  The  article  is  by  Carrion 
Nisas,  an  infamous  buffoon.  I  set  to  work  to 
reply  to  him  in  a  few  words.  Thus :  *  It  is  not 
given  to  all  the  world  to  accomplish  with  impunity 
the  most  sacred  and  natural  of  all  duties.  In  all 
ages  a  certain  class  of  the  populace  has  bawled 
to  disturb  funeral  processions. 

" '  The  daughter  of  M.  Necker  might  have 
expected  it.  She  remains  to-day  the  sole  repre- 
sentative of  a  family  that  was  long  illustrious. 
This  family  must  pay  the  price  of  its  glory  to  the 
depredators  of  all  glory,  the  enemies  of  all  virtue. 
Besides,  the  opportunity  is  a  good  one.  The 
father  is  dead;  the  daughter  is  far  away.  Put 
forth  all  your  strength,  then;  the  enterprise  is 
worthy  of  your  courage.  It  becomes  you  to 
attack  a  tomb  defended  by  a  woman.' " 

"  Called  upon  Madame  Pourrat.  She  spoke 
to  me  of  Madame  de  Stael's  book  on  M.  Necker, 
which  is  doing  better  than  I  expected.  '  How,' 
Madame  Pourrat  said  to  me,  *  could  M.  Necker 
be  afraid  of  death  ?  He  should  have  said  to 
himself:  "  Either  the  soul  is  immortal  or  it  is  not. 
If  it  is,  I  have  nothing  to  fear ;  if  it  is  not,  then 
too  I  have  nothing  to  fear.'"  As  if  the  imagina- 
tion ever  presented  these  dilemmas!     It  is  as  if  I 

179 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

were  to  say  to  a  lover  :  '  Either  your  mistress  is 
faithful  to  you  or  she  is  not.  If  she  is,  she  is 
worthy  of  you,  and  you  need  not  distrust  her ;  if 
she  is  not,  she  is  unworthy  of  you,  and  you  need 
not  regret  her.'" 

"  A  tiresome  dinner  with  Madame  Pourrat." 

**  Dine  with  Madame  R^camier,  and  meet 
General  Sebastiani.  A  silly  man,  cold-blooded, 
full  of  those  generalisations  which  the  Machiavel- 
lists  of  our  day  adopt  as  profound  truths." 

"This  morning  I  sorted  my  papers — a  task 
which  always  makes  me  profoundly  melancholy. 
What  a  number  of  ties  I  have  broken ! 

"  What  a  strange  passion  for  independence  and 
isolation  has  dominated  my  life,  and  through 
what  weakness,  stranger  still,  I  find  myself  at  the 
present  time  the  most  dependent  man  I  know !  I 
must  follow  to  the  end  this  life  which  I  have  led 
so  madly.  I  have  at  least  had  the  wit  to  keep 
it  serious  and  intact  in  the  eyes  of  others.  No 
one  suspects  the  madness  which  invades  and 
devastates  it.  A  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael. 
I  shall  not  answer.  I  am  sick  to  death  of 
her  eternal  reproaches  and  my  eternal  justifica- 
tions. It  is  all  very  well  for  women  to  talk. 
When  once  there  has  been  love  in  one's  relations 
with  them,  they  will  not  be  satisfied  with  anything 
else. " 

"  Madame  Talma  gets  worse  and  worse.  The 
doctors  are  divided  in  opinion.  Their  skill  is 
inadequate,  and  nature  is  inexorable.  .  .  .  All  my 
friends  are  dying,  and  I  do  not  remember  to  have 

x8o 


Madame  Talma  Dying 

seen  the  death  of  a  single  enemy.  A  year  ago, 
in  this  same  Journal,  I  was  congratulating  myself 
upon  saving  Huber  at  Ulm.  He  is  dead.  I 
wrote  that  there  had  been  nothing  but  pleasure  in 
my  relations  with  Madame  Talma ;  she  is  dying. 
I  have  often  praised  the  gentleness,  the  social 
qualities  of  Blacon ;  he  has  committed  suicide. 
My  path  is  over  graves.  ...  I  remain — debris 
in  the  midst  of  fallen  ruins — my  soul  withered  and 
worn  out.  I  regret  to  note  that  all  that  is  good 
perishes,  and  that  all  that  is  vile  and  savage 
endures." 

"  Madame  Talma  is  dying ;  nothing  more  can 
be  done  for  her.  Her  pretended  friends  are 
around  her,  making  a  fuss,  looking  out  for  what 
they  can  get.  Their  melancholy  calculations  are 
disguised  as  a  confident  hope  of  her  recovery.  H  er 
character  is  almost  entirely  changed  by  her  illness. 
She  is  restless,  exacting,  greedy — she  who  used  to 
be  so  generous !     Poor  human  nature !  " 

*'  Dinner  at  Madame  Lindsay's  with  a  few 
friends.  The  evening  was  agreeable  and  the 
conversation  pleasant ;  but  my  life  is  not  there. 
In  truth  my  life  is  not  anywhere  but  within.  I 
let  it  be  taken  hold  of.  Anyone  is  free  to  take 
possession  of  my  outward  life  who  can.  It  is 
wrong ;  for  that  deprives  me  of  my  time  and 
strength.  But  the  inner  life  is  defended  by  a 
barrier  which  other  people  do  not  cross.  They 
cause  pain  to  enter  there  sometimes,  but  never  do 
they  establish  themselves  there  as  masters." 

"  Pass  the  evening  at  Madame  R^camier's.     I 
i8i 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

must  have  made  myself  amiable,  for  I  was  compli- 
mented on  doing  so." 

"Dinner  with  Madame  Talma.  She  is  much 
better,  and  seems  to  have  reconquered  life  by  the 
power  of  her  mind.  That  would  prove  the  truth 
of  the  saying  that  it  is  only  through  stupidity  that 
one  dies." 

"Supper  with  Madame  Rdcamier.  It  was 
very  tiresome.  The  young  people  of  this 
generation  are  too  much  given  to  sneering,  and 
are  veritably  stupid." 

"Dined  with  Hochet  and  Piscatory.  What 
with  the  dinner  and  the  conversation,  I  became 
excited  and  said  things  about  people  which  I  have 
hitherto  been  careful  not  to  say.  Happily  my 
companions  will  forget  half  of  what  I  said  and 
only  repeat  a  portion  of  the  rest 

"  I  propose  to  interrupt  all  my  literary  work  in 
order  to  set  my  life  in  order.  Many  people  have 
needed  less  than  a  month  to  seize  power  in  the 
State.  Ought  I  to  need  more  in  order  to  decide 
matters  which  concern  myself  alone  ?  I  will  put 
all  my  strength  into  the  task.  But,  above  all, 
there  must  be  no  more  Coppet,  and  no  more. 
Geneva.  All  that  I  find  there  is  a  glittering 
lake  which  has  made  me  blind,  and  relatives  who 
never  cease  finding  fault  with  me. 

"  Madame  Lindsay  writes  to  me  to  say  that,  at 
bottom,  we  are  very  much  like  each  other.  That 
perhaps  is  a  reason  why  we  should  not  suit  each 
other.  It  is  because  men  are  so  much  alike  that 
Providence  has  created  women  who  do  not 
resemble  them." 

182 


The  Soul  an  Inexplicable  Enigma 

"  Dined  with  Madame  Talma,  who  is  dying,  but 
is  more  amiable  than  ever." 

"  Passed  the  day  and  the  night  near  Madame 
Talma,  whose  end  is  approaching.  I  look  on  and 
study  death.  She  has  recovered  all  her  faculties — 
her  wit,  her  grace,  her  gaiety,  her  memory,  the 
old  vivacity  of  her  opinions.  Can  it  be  that  all 
that  will  perish  ?  One  clearly  sees  that  what  she 
has  preserved  of  her  soul  is  only  troubled  by  the 
weakness  of  her  body,  but  not  intrinsically 
diminished.  It  is  certain  that,  if  one  could  take 
that  which  makes  her  think  and  speak — her  mind, 
in  a  word — and  all  the  faculties  which  make  up 
that  which  I  have  loved  so  well,  and  transport 
it  to  another  body,  it  would  all  live  again. 
Nothing  is  impaired.  .  .  .  The  spectacle  of  death 
on  this  occasion  brings  me  ideas  to  which  I  was 
not  prone." 

"  She  is  dead.  It  is  over,  for  ever !  Kind  and 
gentle  friend !  I  saw  you  die.  Long  time  I  held 
you  in  my  arms.  And  now  you  are  no  more. 
My  grief  had  been  kept  in  suspense  by  the  hope 
of  saving  you  yet  again.  I  saw  your  death 
without  terror,  for  I  saw  nothing  violent  enough 
to  destroy  this  intelligence  of  which  I  guard  so 
lively  a  recollection.  Immortality  of  the  soul  I 
Inexplicable  enigma !  .  .  . 

"  To  read  what  I  have  written  in  the  past 
about  this  distinguished  woman,  no  one  would 
believe  in  the  bitter  regret  and  the  unceasing  pain 
which  her  loss  has  made  me  feel.  Yes,  I  judge 
my  friends  severely,  but  I  love  them  better  than 
anything  else  in  the  world.     I  serve  them,  and  I 

183 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

render  them  more  true  affection  than  do  all  those 
people  who  boast  of  their  sensibility,  but  who,  I 
am  sure,  are  not  such  good  companions  in  grief 
and  adversity  as  I  am.  I  have  lost  the  most 
disinterested  and  the  best  of  friends." 

"  I  was  present  at  the  burial  of  Madame  Talma, 
with  a  small  number  of  friends  who  were  deeply 
affected.  For  a  moment  I  feared  that  I  should 
not  be  able  to  bear  up  through  this  mournful 
ceremony,  which  seemed  doubly  sad  when  I 
recalled  the  grace,  the  gaiety,  and  the  kindness  of 
heart  of  her  who  was  locked  up  in  the  narrow 
coffin.  The  ceremony  alone  was  an  empty  show, 
wherein  each  played  his  part,  the  priests  singing 
their  psalms  for  money,  and  everything  proceeding 
mechanically.  A  queer  state  of  things,  when 
even  those  who  claim  to  represent  religion,  those 
who  call  themselves  its  ministers,  do  not  take  the 
trouble  to  appear  convinced  of  its  truth.  Only 
one  portion  of  the  ceremony  seemed  to  me  to 
have  anything  touching  in  it — the  salutation  of 
the  priests  as  they  pass  before  the  body,  and  the 
blessing,  as  it  were,  of  the  coffin  by  each  one  of 
those  present.  The  repetition  of  this  salutation  is 
a  sign  of  memory  and  farewell  which  left  me  with 
an  agreeable  emotion.  I  felt  grateful  to  the  men 
who  thus  continued  to  show  their  respect  to  her 
who  was  no  more." 


184 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Corinne 

Madame  de  Stael  returned  to  Coppet  and  wrote 
Corinne,  which  was  published  in  the  spring 
of  1807. 

It  is  the  most  famous  of  her  books.  Six 
editions  of  it  were  printed  in  her  lifetime,  and 
others  have  been  printed  since.  Those  of  her 
contemporaries  who  found  fault  with  it  did  so 
chiefly  because  she  glorified  an  Englishman  at 
the  expense  of  a  Frenchman,  and  spoke  dis- 
dainfully of  the  Italians.  Most  of  them  were 
enthusiastic ;  and  it  would  be  possible,  if  it  were 
worth  while,  to  fill  many  pages  with  the  ex- 
pressions of  their  praise.  Byron,  Benjamin 
Constant,  Suard,  Henri  Meister,  Sir  James 
Mackintosh,  Frederick  Schlegel,  Gouverneur 
Morris  were  numbered  among  her  panegyrists. 
It  is  only  because  the  verdict  was  so  nearly 
unanimous  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  call  the 
witnesses.  The  world  in  general  bestowed  the 
name  of  the  heroine  upon  the  author.  Thence- 
forward, when  people  said  "Corinne,"  they  meant 
Madame  de  Stael.  The  modern  critic,  even  if  he 
does  not  endorse  the  judgment,  must  at  least 
begin  by  recording  it. 

185 


Madame  dc  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Such  a  critic's  first  impression  is  that  here,  at 
last,  is  something  definite  and  mature.  When 
Madame  de  Stael  began  to  write,  she  could  not 
even  punctuate  ;  the  stops  are  all  over  her  pages, 
as  if  sprinkled  at  random  from  a  pepper-pot.  In 
CoriuTie  they  are  used,  as  they  should  be,  to  give 
form  to  the  sentences.  And,  as  the  sentences  are 
complete,  so  too  is  the  book.  There  is  no  longer 
any  question  of  brilliant  promise  or  noble  failure 
to  achieve.  We  may  like  the  book,  or  we  may 
dislike  it ;  but  we  can  make  no  mistake  about 
it,  and  can  have  no  doubts  as  to  the  writer's 
intentions.  For  good  or  for  bad,  it  is  exactly 
what  it  was  meant  to  be.  It  is,  in  fact,  and  was 
meant  to  be,  two  things — a  dissertation  on  Italy, 
and  a  romance  into  which  Madame  de  Stael,  as 
usual,  put  a  great  deal  of  herself. 

"If  it  were  not  out  of  respect  for  my  fellow- 
creatures,"  Madame  de  Stael  said  to  MoM,  "  I 
would  not  take  the  trouble  to  open  my  window  to 
get  my  first  view  of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  whereas  I 
would  willingly  travel  five  hundred  leagues  to 
converse  with  a  man  of  talent  unknown  to  me." 
We  have  already  quoted  her  assertion  that  she  pre- 
ferred beautiful  thoughts  to  beautiful  statuary.  The 
two  statements  put  together  complete  Madame 
de  Stael's  confession  of  her  incompetence  to 
interpret  a  country  which  appeals  far  more  to  the 
senses  than  to  the  intellect  Just  as  the  real 
intellectual  problems,  as  presented,  for  instance, 
in  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  were  too  high  for 

1 86 


Italy  Through  Schlegel's  Eyes 

her,  so  the  art  of  Italy  was  outside  her  range. 
She  was  clever,  but  not  profound ;  prone  to 
emotion,  but  not  susceptible  to  the  charms  of 
form  and  colour ;  incapable,  above  all  things,  of 
becoming  as  a  little  child  in  the  presence  of  things 
which  she  did  not  understand.  "  I  understand 
everything  that  is  comprehensible,  and  whatever 
I  do  not  understand  is  of  no  importance,"  would 
seem  to  have  been  her  motto  in  Italy  as  in 
Germany.  We  find  her  writing,  therefore,  like 
an  art  lecturer  who  has  never  been  an  art  student 
— but  with  one  significant  qualification  :  she  had 
Schlegel  at  her  elbow. 

What  Madame  de  Stael  saw  with  her  own 
eyes  in  Italy  was  the  levity  of  the  Italians,  who 
made  love  without  abandoning  themselves  to 
passion,  and  had  no  talent  for  politics.  About 
that  she  wrote  despairing  letters  to  Monti.  The 
rest  was  seen,  in  the  first  instance,  if  not  in  the 
last  resort,  through  Schlegel's  eyes.  As  we  read 
the  book,  we  picture  Schlegel  peeping  over  the 
writer's  shoulder  and  proposing  instructive  inter- 
polations. More  than  half  of  the  first  volume,  at 
any  rate,  consists  of  such  interpolations,  though 
they  do  not  appear  exactly  in  the  shape  which 
Schlegel  would  have  given  them.  Occasionally 
there  is  a  flash  of  inspiration  that  obviously  was 
not  Schlegel's.  The  description  of  the  Roman 
Campagna  as  "a  tired  soil  which  seems  too  proud 
to  be  fertile"  is  a  case  in  point — a  characteristic 
use    of    the    pathetic    fallacy.     More    often    the 

187 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

generalisations  acquire  a  vagueness  of  which 
Schlegel  would  not  have  been  proud ;  and  there 
is  a  vast  deal  too  much  enthusiasm  for  the  beaux 
arts  in  general,  paraded  on  page  after  page  as 
the  badge  of  the  ante  sensible.  It  is  self-con- 
scious and  patronising,  and  the  true  ring  is  not  in  it. 
Italy  contributes  the  local  colour,  but  not  the  spirit 
or  the  atmosphere  of  the  story.  Indeed,  the 
English  local  colour  is  better  and  more  convincing 
than  the  Italian  ;  Madame  de  Stael  having  known 
England  in  earlier  and  more  impressionable  years. 
The  story,  as  all  the  world  knows,  is  of  the 
vain  endeavour  of  a  woman  of  genius  to  find 
happiness  in  love.  Its  interest  and  value  is  as 
Madame  de  Stael's  own  rendering  of  what  she 
conceived  to  be  her  own  experience  of  life. 
Here  again,  as  in  Delpkine,  there  is  little  that  is 
strictly  speaking  autobiographical.  The  story, 
indeed,  so  far  from  being  autobiographical,  is 
hardly  even  original.  The  plot  is  taken  from 
Madame  de  Charriere — the  same  Madame  de 
Charriere  from  whom  Madame  de  Stael  had 
already  taken  Benjamin  Constant.  In  Caliste, 
which  Madame  de  Stael  had  read,  as  she  says, 
*'  ten  times,"  there  is  the  same  English  nobleman 
who,  for  sufficient  reasons,  cannot  marry  the 
foreign  woman  whom  he  loves.  What  is  new  is 
not  the  plot  but  the  motive — a  woman's  genius 
despised  and  rejected,  domesticated  mediocrity 
triumphant,  the  man  sorry  for  his  refusal  of  the 
pearl  that  was  beyond  all  price. 

1 88 


The  Super-Man  and  Super- Woman 

It  would  not  seem  that  the  lover  is  drawn  from 
Benjamin  Constant,  or  from  M.  de  Narbonne, 
or  from  Camille  Jordan,  or  from  any  man  whom 
Madame  de  Stael  had  known.  He  is  a  woman's 
ideal  man,  somewhat  suggesting — or  should  one  not 
say  anticipating  ? — by  his  mysterious  melancholy 
and  his  amazing  prowess,  those  lovelorn  Life 
Guardsmen  of  "  Ouida's  "  fiction  who  suffer  un- 
told agonies  in  perfumed  boudoirs,  sit  up  all  night 
drinking  brandy  punch  with  boon  companions, 
and  win  the  Grand  National  or  stroke  the  Oxford 
Eight  to  victory  upon  the  morrow.  The  way  in 
which  Lord  Nelvil  takes  the  helm  and  encourages 
the  timid  sailors  during  the  storm  in  the  Channel, 
and  the  way  in  which  he  runs  about  with  a  squirt, 
extinguishing  the  conflagration  at  Ancona — to 
say  nothing  of  the  way  in  which  he  plunges  into 
the  Bay  of  Naples  to  rescue  a  drowning  man — 
are  equally  characteristic  of  the  Super-man  as  con- 
ceived by  woman  in  the  days  when  she  did  not 
yet  esteem  hers  the  stronger  sex.  But  Corinne  is 
not  only  the  Super-woman.  She  is  also  Madame 
de  Stael. 

We  are  told,  it  is  true,  that  Corinne  was 
beautiful,  and  we  know  that  Madame  de  Stael 
was  not ;  but  that  discrepancy  proves  nothing, 
and  is  not  intended  to  deceive.  Or,  at  any  rate, 
it  proves,  not  that  Madame  de  Stael  fancied  that 
she  was  beautiful,  but  only  that  she  would  have 
liked  to  fancy  it.  In  other  respects  the  likeness 
is  a   speaking  one.     The  crowning  of  Corinne 

189 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

with  laurel  on  the  Capitol  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
an  incident  in  Madame  de  Stael's  own  Italian 
journey.  She  had  been  clothed  for  the  occasion 
exactly  as  she  clothes  Corinne ;  she  had  ex- 
changed sonnets  with  her  admirers  in  exactly 
the  same  way.  She  gives  Corinne  those  shapely 
arms  which  were  the  chief  of  her  own  physical 
attractions.  Corinne's  talents  were  her  own 
talents ;  Corinne's  unhappiness  was  her  own  un- 
happiness.  In  her  portrait  of  Corinne  she  depicted 
feminine  genius  as  she  understood  it.  The  limita- 
tions of  the  conception  are  the  more  pathetic 
because  they  are  so  absolutely  and  obviously 
unconscious. 

Genius  is  indefinable.  One  hesitates,  there- 
fore, before  saying  that  Madame  de  Stael  neither 
had  the  divine  gift  nor  succeeded  in  depicting  it 
in  her  heroine.  Yet  one  can  find  in  the  figure  of 
Corinne  a  good  deal  that  seems  to  warrant  Thiers' 
pronouncement  that  her  creator  was  the  very  type 
of  mediocrity.  Thiers  was  a  man  who  knew 
mediocrity  well  from  personal  experience,  and  his 
remarks  on  that  branch  of  the  subject  necessarily 
command  respect.  It  was,  no  doubt,  highly 
gifted  mediocrity  that  he  recognised  in  Madame 
de  Stael ;  and  it  might  plausibly  be  argued  that, 
when  mediocrity  is  highly  gifted,  it  ceases  to  be 
mediocre.  By  tirelessness,  by  restlessness — by 
great,  though  scattered,  energy  —  Madame  de 
Stael  rose  far  above  the  common  level  of  women, 
imposed    her    personality,    and    left    her    mark. 

190 


The  Salonitre  of  the   Fine  Arts 

And  yet,  admitting  all  this,  one  can  see  what 
Thiers  meant  by  his  criticism  —  and  can  see, 
too,  that  there  was  something  in  it.  One  sees 
it  best  by  first  seeing,  as  one  can  from  the 
persual  of  Corinne,  what  Madame  de  Stael  under- 
stood by  genius,  and  how  she  expected  it  to  be 
manifested. 

What  one  misses  in  the  alleged  genius  of  Corinne 
is  "  inwardness  "  ;  what  one  notes  is  obviousness. 
The  end  at  which  this  genius  always  aims  is 
effect ;  the  test  by  which  it  is  pronounced  supreme 
is  always  that  of  effect — in  the  actor's  sense  of  the 
word.  One  does  not  think  of  Corinne  producing 
beautiful  things  by  stealth  because  the  love  of 
beauty  constrains  her.  Like  Madame  de  Stael 
herself,  she  gives  performances ;  and  her  claim 
on  our  admiration  is  not  the  quality  of  the  work, 
but  the  success  of  the  performance.  She  is  as  it 
were  the  saloniere  of  the  fine  arts.  She  talks 
interminably,  and  the  men  sit  at  her  feet  and 
hang  upon  her  words.  She  "  improvises,"  and 
the  men  clap  their  hands  and  place  the  crown 
upon  her  head.  We  are  left  with  the  impression 
that  this  sort  of  thing  is  not  only  the  proof  but 
the  purpose  of  genius,  and  that  genius,  whether 
in  the  person  of  Corinne  or  of  Madame  de  Stael, 
is  wronged  when  happiness  in  love  does  not  result 
from  such  exhibitions  of  what  vulgar  people  have 
been  known  to  call  "parlour  tricks." 

Yet  the  real  reason  why  happiness  in  love  is 
not  so  brought  about  is  quite  clear,  though  quite 

191 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

other  than  Madame  de  Stael  supposed.  It  is  not 
the  splendour  of  the  genius,  but  the  obviousness 
of  it,  that  is  the  obstacle.  The  history  of  Madame 
de  Stael's  own  love  affairs  is  generally  this :  that 
she  won  men's  affections  because  she  talked  so 
well,  and  then  lost  them  because  she  talked 
so  much.  The  level-headed  observer  would  have 
expected  pretty  much  the  same  thing  to  happen 
with  Corinne.  The  first  effect  would  have  been 
dazzling  because — once  more  to  quote  the  vulgar 
— Corinne  "kept  all  her  goods  in  the  shop 
window."  But,  if  there  is  to  be  happiness  in 
love,  the  first  effect  must  be  only  the  piquant 
prelude  to  the  second,  and  the  second  to  the 
third.  The  lover  must  be  permitted  to  feel  that 
he  is  also  a  discoverer — that  the  pearl  of  great 
price  which  he  has  found  has  a  secret  value 
of  which  he  only  is  aware.  He  may,  indeed, 
scramble  and  compete  for  the  pearl  of  which  the 
marvellous  value  is  made  publicly  known  to  the 
world ;  but  in  that  case  it  is  vanity,  not  love, 
that  lures  him  on.  And  happiness  in  vanity  is  a 
very  vain  sort  of  happiness,  and  differs  toto  ccelo 
from  happiness  in  love. 

In  considerations  of  this  sort,  and  not,  as 
Madame  de  Stael  supposed,  in  the  dislike  of 
mediocrity  for  anything  better  than  itself,  lies  the 
secret  of  Corinne's  failure.  Much  satire  is  ex- 
pended, in  the  course  of  the  story,  upon  the 
narrow  vision  and  gross  prejudices  of  the 
commonplace.     It   is   effective   satire,   and   it   is 

192 


"  Corinne's "  Genius  Superficial 

well  merited ;  but  it  is  largely  beside  the  mark. 
Real  genius  triumphs  over  such  things  by 
ignoring  them.  Corinne's  was  the  superficial 
genius  of  the  popular  entertainer.  Her  volubility 
dissipated  the  mysteries  through  which  it  is  the 
delight  of  love  slowly  to  find  its  way.  When  she 
had  recited  her  poems  and  lectured  on  the  arts,  she 
had  revealed  all  the  secrets  of  her  charm.  She 
was  tout  en  dehors — as  obvious  as  the  photograph 
of  a  professional  beauty  or  the  pictorial  advertise- 
ment of  a  tooth-paste.  The  pathetic  thing  is  that 
Madame  de  Stael  should  have  drawn  such  a  figure 
as  a  glorified  portrait  of  herself,  not  perceiving  the 
limitations  which  its  externality  implied,  but  in 
the  confident  belief  that  this  sort  of  thing  is 
genius  in  its  loftiest  manifestation,  and  that  those 
who  do  not  love  it  when  they  see  it,  and  desire 
its  daily  companionship,  are  citizens  of  Philistia, 
the  enemies  of  light  and  "  sensibility."  The  reason 
of  her  own  loud,  long,  and  unavailing  cry  for 
happiness  is  there. 


N  193 


CHAPTER   XVII 

The  return  from  Italy — The  life  at  Coppet — The  visitors — Their 
reminiscences — Descriptions  of  Coppet  by  Madame  Vigee  Le 
Brun — By  Baron  de  Voght — By  Rosalie  de  Constant — 
Quarrels  with  Benjamin  Constant. 

Madame  de  Stael  was  no  sooner  back  from 
Italy  than  she  wished  to  go  to  France ;  but 
Fouchd  refused  her  a  passport.  She  therefore 
divided  her  time  for  some  months  between 
Coppet  and  Geneva,  arranging  a  notable  series  of 
theatrical  representations  in  both  places.  Even 
after  she  had  obtained  her  passport,  she  delayed 
her  departure  until  the  spring  of  1 806,  when  she 
took  up  her  residence  at  Auxerre.  Schlegel  was 
with  her.  Mathieu  de  Montmorency,  Camille 
Jordan,  and  other  friends  visited  her  there ;  but 
she  was,  none  the  less,  unhappy.  Benjamin's 
conduct,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  was  once  more 
such  as  to  cause  her  distress  ;  and  we  gather  from 
one  of  her  letters  to  Frederika  Brun^  that  she 
could  not  sleep  without  the  use  of  opiates. 

From  Auxerre  she  visited  Blois,  and  she  also 
planned  a  visit  to  Spa  for  the  benefit  of  her 
health.  Her  next  sojourn  was  at  Rouen,  where, 
early  in  1807,  she  received  permission  to  reside, 

^  The  poetess  of  Copenhagen.     Her  correspondence  with  Bon- 
stetten  has  been  published. 

194 


Once  again  at  Coppet 

until  the  following  ist  of  April,  at  the  Chateau 
d'Acosta,  in  Auberge-en-Ville,  Seine -et-Oise. 
She  went  there ;  she  even  succeeded,  while 
there,  in  paying  surreptitious  visits  to  Paris,  but 
the  circumstance  came  to  Napoleon's  ears,  and 
she  was  ordered  to  withdraw  at  once  to  a  greater 
distance  from  the  capital.  In  May,  therefore,  she 
returned  once  more  to  Coppet,  where  she  enter- 
tained her  friends,  and  made  her  preparations  for 
yet  another  journey  to  Germany.  On  Decem- 
ber 3,  1807,  she  announced  her  departure  to  the 
Prefect,  alleging  her  desire  that  her  younger  son, 
Albert,  should  be  instructed  in  the  German 
language.  Attended  by  Schlegel,  she  arrived, 
on  the  14th,  at  Munich,  where  she  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Schelling,  who  had  married 
Schlegel's  divorced  wife.  After  a  short  stay,  she 
moved  on  to  Vienna,  where  the  Imperial  family 
received  her  with  civility,  and  where,  in  April, 
Albert  de  Stael  became  a  pupil  at  the  Military 
Academy.  In  June  1808  she  travelled  to  Weimar 
and  Frankfort,  and  in  July  of  the  same  year  we 
find  her  once  again  at  Coppet. 

Such  is,  in  brief  outline,  the  chronicle  of  the 
exterior  events  of  Madame  de  Stael's  life  during 
the  period  in  which  the  inner  life  of  the  heart 
approached,  and  reached,  and  passed  its  crisis. 
Napoleon's  persecution  of  her  did  not  amount,  as 
yet,  to  much  more  than  a  policy  of  pin-pricks ; 
and  he  explained  his  attitude  clearly  enough  to 
her  son,  Auguste,  in  an  interview  accorded  to  him 

195 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

at  Chambery.  **Your  mother,"  he  said,  ''would 
not  be  six  months  at  Paris  before  I  should  be 
obliged  to  lock  her  up  at  Bicetre  or  the  Temple, 
and  that  is  a  thing  I  should  be  sorry  to  do,  as  it 
would  make  a  stir,  and  damage  me  in  public 
opinion."  If  ^he  had  imprisoned  her,  he  added, 
he  would  relent,  and  release  her,  but  he  would  not 
recall  her  from  exile.  She  might  go  to  Rome,  to 
Naples,  to  Vienna,  to  Berlin,  to  Milan,  to  Lyons. 
If  she  wanted  to  write  libels  about  him,  she  had 
better  go  to  London.  All  the  rest  of  Europe  was 
open  to  her;  but  to  Paris  she  would  not  be 
allowed  to  come.  There,  and  in  that  neighbour- 
hood, no  one  might  live  who  disliked  the  Emperor 
and  made  jokes  at  his  expense. 

Hence  the  unceremonious  expulsion  from 
Seine-et-Oise ;  hence  also  the  fact  that  the 
indignity  there  endured  interfered  in  no  respect 
with  the  dignity  and  outward  splendour  of  the 
salon  at  Coppet.  One  could  fill  a  page  with  the 
names  of  distinguished  personages  who,  at  one 
time  or  another,  were  guests  there.  Benjamin 
Constant,  Schlegel,  and  Sismondi  were  habitues. 
Other  names  upon  our  list  would  be  those  of 
Madame  R^camier,  Prospere  de  Barante,^  Werner, 
the  German  poet,  Karl  Ritter,  the  German  geo- 
grapher, Baron  de  Voght,^  the  Duchess  of 
Courland,    Monti,   Pictet,    editor   of  the  Biblio- 

^  Son  of  the  Prefect  of  Geneva,  afterwards  in  the  diplomatic  service. 
*  Philanthropist,  economist,  and  writer  on  agricultural  subjects. 
The  Emperor  of  Austria  gave  him  his  title. 

196 


An  Impressionist  Picture 

tkeque,  Madame  Vig^e  Le  Brun,  Oelenschlager, 
the  Danish  poet,  Cuvier,  Bonstetten,  Frederika 
Brun,  and  Benjamin  Constant's  cousin,  RosaUe. 
An  impressionist  picture  has  been  bequeathed  to 
us  from  the  pen  of  almost  every  one  of  them,  and 
there  would  be  little  to  be  gained  by  troubling  to 
arrange  the  pictures  in  their  order,  or  selecting  them 
otherwise  than  at  random.  The  picture  drawn  by 
Madame  Vig^e  Le  Brun  may  serve  to  begin  with. 

"  I  paint  her  in  antique  costume.  She  is  not 
beautiful,  but  the  animation  of  her  countenance 
takes  the  place  of  beauty.  To  aid  the  expression 
I  wished  to  give  her,  I  entreated  her  to  recite  tragic 
verses  while  I  painted.  She  declaimed  passages 
from  Corneille  and  Racine.  ...  I  find  many 
persons  established  at  Coppet :  the  beautiful 
Madame  R^camier,  the  Comte  de  Sabran,^  a 
young  Englishman,  Benjamin  Constant,  etc.  Its 
society  is  continually  renewed.  They  come  to 
visit  the  illustrious  exile  who  is  pursued  by  the 
rancour  of  the  Emperor.  Her  two  sons  are  now 
with  her,  under  the  instruction  of  the  German 
scholar  Schlegel ;  her  daughter  is  very  beautiful, 
and  has  a  passionate  love  of  study.  Madame  de 
Stael  receives  with  grace  and  without  affectation ; 
she  leaves  her  company  free  all  the  morning,  but 
they  unite  in  the  evening.  It  is  only  after  dinner 
that  they  can  converse  with  her.  She  then  walks  in 
her  salon,  holding  in  her  hand  a  little  green  branch  ; 
and  her  words  have  an  ardour  quite  peculiar  to  her. 
It  is  impossible  to  interrupt  her.  At  these  times 
she  produces  on  one  the  effect  of  an  improvisatrice." 
^  Elzear  de  Sabran,  stepson  of  Madame  de  Boufflers. 
197 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Next  we  may  quote  the  report  of  the  Genevan 
writer,  Petit-Senn,  who  apparently  was  not  quite 
sure  whether  he  ought  to  be  shocked  or  not. 
The  circle,  according  to  him — 

"  Presented  the  aspect  of  a  synod  of  quite 
novel  character.  The  different  systems  of  religion 
were  strongly  contrasted  there.  Catholicism 
was  represented  by  Mathieu  de  Montmorency, 
Quietism  by  M.  de  Langallerie,  lUuminism  by 
M.  de  Divonne,  Rationalism  by  Baron  Voght, 
Calvinism  by  the  Pastor  Maulinie.  Even 
Benjamin  Constant,  then  occupied  with  his 
work  on  Religions,  brought  his  tribute  to  the  theo- 
logical conferences — conferences  which  borrowed 
no  austerity  from  the  accidents  of  the  time  or  the 
place.  The  conversations  at  dinner  and  in  the 
evening  were  chiefly  on  religious  subjects  of  the 
most  mystic  nature,  and  were  seldom  changed 
even  for  the  news  of  the  day  or  for  brief  musical 
entertainments." 

Our  third  picture  may  be  that  drawn  by  Baron 
de  Voght,  above  referred  to,  in  a  letter  to 
Madame  Recamier. 

"It  is  to  you  that  I  owe  my  most  amiable 
reception  at  Coppet.  It  is  no  doubt  to  the 
favourable  expectations  aroused  by  your  friend- 
ship that  I  owe  my  intimate  acquaintance  with 
this  remarkable  woman.  I  might  have  met  her 
without  your  assistance, — some  casual  acquaintance 
would  no  doubt  have  introduced  me, — but  I  should 
never  have  penetrated  to  the  intimacy  of  this 
sublime  and  beautiful  soul,  and  should  never 
have  known  how  much  better  she  is   than  her 

198 


Another  Picture 

reputation.  She  is  an  angel  sent  from  heaven  to 
reveal  the  divine  goodness  upon  earth.  To  make 
her  irresistible,  a  pure  ray  of  celestial  light 
embellishes  her  spirit  and  makes  her  amiable 
from  every  point  of  view. 

"  At  once  profound  and  light,  whether  she  is 
discovering  a  mysterious  secret  of  the  soul  or 
grasping  the  lightest  shadow  of  a  sentiment,  her 
genius  shines  without  dazzling,  and  when  the 
orb  of  light  has  disappeared,  it  leaves  a  pleasant 
twilight  to  follow  it.  ...  No  doubt  a  few  faults, 
a  few  weaknesses,  occasionally  veil  this  celestial 
apparition  ;  even  the  initiated  must  sometimes  be 
troubled  by  these  eclipses  which  the  Genevan 
astronomers  in  vain  endeavour  to  predict. 

"  My  travels  so  far  have  been  limited  to 
Lausanne  and  Coppet,  where  I  often  stay  three 
or  four  days.  The  life  there  suits  me  perfectly  ; 
the  company  is  even  more  to  my  taste.  I  like 
Constant's  wit,  Schlegel's  learning,  Sabran's 
amiability,  Sismondi's  talent  and  character,  the 
simple  truthful  disposition  and  just  intellectual 
perceptions  of  Auguste,  the  wit  and  sweetness 
of  Albertine — I  was  forgetting  Bonstetten — an 
excellent  fellow,  full  of  knowledge  of  all  sorts, 
ready  in  wit,  adaptable  in  character — in  every 
way  inspiring  one's  respect  and  confidence. 

"  Your  sublime  friend  looks  on  and  gives  life 
to  everything.  She  imparts  intelligence  to  those 
around  her.  In  every  corner  of  the  house  some- 
one is  engaged  in  composing  a  great  work.  .  .  . 
Corinne  is  writing  her  delightful  letters  about 
Germany,  which  will  no  doubt  prove  to  be  the 
best  thing  she  has  ever  done. 

"  The  Shunammitish  Widow,  an  Oriental 
199 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

melodrama  which  she  has  just  finished,  will  be 
played  in  October.  Coppet  will  be  flooded  with 
tears.  Constant  and  Auguste  are  both  composing 
tragedies ;  Sabran  is  writing  a  comic  opera,  and 
Sismondi  a  history  ;  Schlegel  is  translating  some- 
thing, Bonstetten  is  busy  with  philosophy,  and 
I  am  busy  with  my  letter  to  Juliette." 

A  month  later,  Baron  de  Voght  resumes  : — 

"  Since  my  last  letter,  Madame  de  Stael  has 
read  us  several  chapters  of  her  work.  Every- 
where it  bears  the  marks  of  her  talent.  I  wish 
I  could  persuade  her  to  cut  out  everything  in  it 
connected  with  politics,  and  all  the  metaphors 
which  interfere  with  its  clarity,  simplicity,  and 
accuracy.  What  she  needs  to  demonstrate  is  not 
her  Republicanism  but  her  wisdom.  .  .  .  Mile 
de  Jenner  played  in  one  of  Werner's  tragedies 
which  was  given  last  Friday  before  an  audience 
of  twenty.  She,  Werner,  and  Schlegel  played 
perfectly.  .  .  . 

"  The  arrival  in  Switzerland  of  M.  Cuvier  has 
been  a  happy  distraction  for  Madame  de  Stael ; 
they  spent  two  days  together  at  Geneva,  and  were 
well  pleased  with  each  other.  On  her  return  to 
Coppet  she  found  Middleton  there,  and  in  receiv- 
ing his  confidences  forgot  her  troubles.  Yesterday 
she  resumed  her  work. 

"  The  poet^  whose  mystical  and  sombre  genius 
has  caused  us  such  profound  emotions,  starts,  in  a 
few  days'  time,  for  Italy. 

"  I  accompanied  Corinne  to  Massot's.  To 
alleviate   the   tedium    of  the   sitting,    a  musical 

*  Monti. 
200 


Further  Reminiscences 

performance  had  been  arranged,  a  Mile  Romilly 
playing  pleasantly  on  the  harp,  and  the  studio 
was  a  veritable  temple  of  the  Muses.  .  .  . 

"  Bonstetten  gave  us  two  readings  of  a  Memoir 
on  the  Northern  Alps.  It  began  very  well,  but 
afterwards  it  bored  us.  .  .  .  Madame  de  Stael 
resumed  her  reading,  and  there  was  no  longer 
any  question  of  being  bored.  It  is  marvellous 
how  much  she  must  have  read  and  thought  over 
to  be  able  to  find  the  opportunity  of  saying  so 
many  good  things.  One  may  disagree  with  her, 
but  one  cannot  help  delighting  in  her  talent.  .  .  . 

"And  now  we  are  here  at  Geneva,  trying  to 
reproduce  Coppet  at  the  Hotel  des  Balances. 
I  am  delightfully  situated,  with  a  wide  view  over 
the  valley  of  Savoy,  between  the  Alps  and  the 
Jura.  .  .  .  Yesterday  evening  the  illusion  of 
Coppet  was  complete.  I  had  been  with  Madame 
de  Stael,  to  call  on  Madame  Rilliet,^  who  is  so 
charming  at  her  own  fireside.  On  my  return 
I  played  chess  with  Sismondi.  Madame  de 
Stael,  Mile  Randall,^  and  Mile  Jenner  sat  on  the 
sofa  chatting  with  Bonstetten  and  young  Barante. 
We  were  as  we  had  always  been — as  we  were 
in  the  days  that  I  shall  never  cease  regretting." 

In  conclusion  we  may  survey  the  scene  through 
the  eyes  of  Cousin  Rosalie — eyes  that,  as  we 
know,  were  sharply  observant,  though  prejudiced, 
and  prone  to  see  faults.  Our  first  letter  is 
written  not  long  cifter  Necker's  death. 

^  NSe  Huber,  the  companion  of  Madame  de  Stael  in  her  girlhood. 
2  An  English  lady,  a  protegee  of  Madame  de  Stael,  and,  after 
her  death,  of  the  Duchesse  de  Broglie. 

20I 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

**  The  other  day  I  saw  Bonstetten,  who  told 
me  about  Madame  de  Stael  and  her  sorrow. 
She  displays  it  at  Geneva,  and  utilises  it  to 
give  entertainments  to  the  Duchess  of  Courland. 
Coppet,  all  the  summer,  has  been  the  rendezvous 
of  the  savants  of  Germany  and  Geneva.  There 
have  been  prodigious  outbursts  of  wit  and  learning. 
Never,  said  M.  de  Bonstetten,  has  there  been 
such  an  outpouring  of  ideas.  He  assured  me 
that  it  might  have  tired  anyone  to  death,  and  that 
it  was  a  pleasure  thereafter  to  meet  people  whose 
conversation  was  commonplace." 

About  the  same  time  M.  Constant  d'Arlens 
visited  Coppet,  and  Rosalie  reports  the  gossip 
that  he  brought  home  with  him. 

"  Schlegel  used  to  address  the  lady  of  the 
house  with  irony  or  severity ;  Benjamin  was  ill, 
and  grumbled  all  day  long,  like  a  spoiled  child. 
Moreover,  he  shows  himself  shockingly  fond  of 
little  Albertine.  He  and  her  mother  combine  to 
overwhelm  her  with  caresses  and  misguided 
attentions." 

Finally  we  may  give  Rosalie's  account  of  a 
performance  of  Merope  at  which  she  was  herself 
present. 

"  I  had  a  kind  and  friendly  reception.  The 
performance  fulfilled  all  my  expectations.  I  had 
never  seen  this  beautiful  tragedy  played.  The 
simplicity  of  the  subject  and  of  the  action,  the 
unaccentuated  elevation  of  the  sentiments,  the 
sustained  beauty  of  the  lines,  the  verisimilitude  of 
the  events  represented — all  these  things  contribute 

202 


The  Coppet  Salon 

to  one's  interest  and  illusion.  I  was  at  Messena, 
and  Madame  de  Stael  was  indeed  the  august  and 
unhappy  queen.  She  had  recovered  the  dignity 
and  grace  which  she  ordinarily  lacks.  The  tone 
of  her  voice  and  the  expression  of  her  face  suited 
her  part.  She  never  for  an  instant  ceased  to 
realise  her  role.  M.  Cramer  also  gave  me  great 
pleasure  as  Narbas.  The  other  actors  were,  in 
my  opinion,  mediocre  or  bad ;  but  the  general 
effect  was  such  that  one  forgave  them.  The 
spectacle  as  a  whole  was  agreeable  and  well 
arranged,  and  the  spectators  were  well  placed 
for  seeing  and  hearing.  One  feels  obliged  to  the 
celebrated  lady  for  having  taken  up  this  noble 
kind  of  entertainment.  Conversation  gains  from 
it.  People  are,  to  some  extent,  fishing  for  invita- 
tions. It  is  a  pity  that  she  does  not  maintain  in 
her  house  the  tone  which  would  make  women 
anxious  to  go  there.  They  have  a  long  repertory, 
and  are  going  to  play  Mahomet.  Benjamin 
thinks  he  is  going  to  play  very  well,  but  for 
my  part  I  shall  feel  very  anxious  about  his 
ddbut." 

Such  is  our  setting.  The  Coppet  Salon  which 
our  quotations  conjure  up  must  have  been,  as  has 
been  said,  "something  like  Holland  House  but 
more  Bohemian,  something  like  Harley  Street 
but  more  select,  something  like  Gad's  Hill — 
which  it  resembled  in  the  fact  that  the  members 
of  the  house  parties  were  expected  to  spend  their 
mornings  at  their  desks — but  on  a  higher  social 
plane ;  a  centre  at  once  of  high  thinking  and 
frivolous  behaviour,  of  hard  work  and  desperate 

203 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

love-making,  which  sometimes  paved  the  way  for 
trouble." 

One  visualises  the  scene  easily  as  one  stands  in 
the  large  Coppet  drawing-room,  in  which  so  many 
ornaments,  so  many  pictures,  so  many  articles  of 
furniture  are  relics  of  the  celebrated  epoch.  One 
thinks  at  first  only  of  the  outward  glitter  and  the 
intellectual  distinction  ;  and  one  is  tempted  to  say 
that  here  life  was  lived  as  it  should  be  lived — as 
all  persons  of  intelligence  and  leisure  and  reason- 
able contempt  for  the  conventions  would  like  to 
live.  Not  until  one's  thoughts  penetrate  beneath 
the  surface  do  the  doubts  arise ;  but  then  they 
come  in  great  force,  and  slowly  strengthen  into 
certainties. 

For  this  society  was  in  the  main  a  society  of 
exiles — of  uprooted  men  and  women,  whose  lives, 
by  no  fault  of  their  own,  lacked  aim  and  continu- 
ity. Only  a  few  of  them  were  really  happy  and 
contented — those  who  were  placid  and  passionless 
like  Madame  R^camier,  and  those  who,  like 
Sismondi,  were  absorbed  in  their  intellectual 
occupations.  The  rest  were  only  making  believe 
furiously,  and  trying  to  persuade  themselves  that 
movement  was  the  same  thing  as  life.  Madame 
de  Stael,  whose  movements  were  the  most  agitated, 
was  probably  the  farthest  from  true  happiness. 
She  wrote  of  Coppet  as  "  the  place  where  I  bored 
myself  so  terribly  for  so  many  years." 

Only  boredom  was  far  from  being  her  only,  or 
even   her  worst  distress.     One  cannot  fail  to  be 

204 


Stormy  Scenes 

reminded  of  that  at  the  moment  when  the  liveried 
attendant  of  the  visitors  exhibits  the  miniature  of 
Benjamin  Constant — "homme  de  lettres  qui  visitait 
le  chateau  de  temps  en  temps."  One  remembers 
then  that  the  period  of  Madame  de  Stael's 
triumphant  theatrical  representations — the  period 
of  the  house  parties  that  were  famous  throughout 
Europe — was  also  the  period  of  the  stormy 
passages  which  culminated  in  her  final  severance 
from  her  lover. 

The  visitors  whom  she  entertained  knew  little 
or  nothing  about  that.  Sainte-Beuve,  indeed, 
relates  how  one  of  them,  concealed  behind  some 
bushes  in  the  garden,  inadvertently  overheard  a 
quarrel  in  which  tears  were  mingled  with 
reproaches  and  recriminations.  He  seems,  how- 
ever, to  have  kept  his  own  counsel  at  the  time  ; 
and  before  strangers  appearances  must  have 
been  in  the  main  preserved.  At  all  events,  it  is 
not  to  the  memoirs  of  contemporaries  that  we 
have  to  go  for  the  details  of  the  story.  For  these 
we  must  go  back  to  the  Constant  correspondence 
and  the  Journal  Intime. 


205 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

Theatrical  performances  at  Coppet  —  Extracts  from  the  JouvTial 
Intime  —  Benjamin  Constant  renews  his  acquaintance  with 
Charlotte  Dutertre — He  proposes  marriage  and  is  accepted — 
Madame  de  Stael  pursues  him  and  drags  him  back  to  Coppet. 

In  1805,  Madame  de  Stael  told  persons  in  her 
confidence  that  she  meant  to  marry  Benjamin 
Constant  later,  when  she  had  started  her  sons  in 
their  professions  ;  but  his  letters  to  his  family  at 
this  period  show  no  disposition  to  fall  in  with  her 
proposals.  The  deaths  of  Madame  Talma  and  of 
Madame  de  Charriere  appear,  for  the  time  being, 
to  have  expelled  all  thoughts  of  other  women  from 
his  mind.  In  the  former,  he  writes,  he  has  lost 
"  the  person  whom  I  trusted  the  most,  and  who 
had  the  most  disinterested  affection  for  me — a 
woman,  in  short,  who  often  gave  me  pleasure, 
and  never  caused  me  pain."  He  had  intended 
to  visit  the  latter  on  her  deathbed  ;  "  but  her 
extreme  weakness  rendered  all  emotion  danger- 
ous, and  I  feared  to  make  her  worse,  and  so 
precipitate  the  hour  which  I  was  told  was  in- 
evitable." There  follow  melancholy  reflections  on 
death  and  the  links  which  it  severs  :  '*  None  of 
these  losses  are  replaced.  The  time  for  forming 
new  ties  is  over ;  the  world  is  depopulated ;  and 

206 


The  Plot  Thickens 

though  I  am  not  yet  old,  I  have  more  friends  in 
the  grave  than  on  the  earth."  For  the  rest,  the 
letters  deal  with  politics  and  money  matters. 
The  bankruptcy  of  Madame  R^camier's  husband 
is  mentioned.  The  request  is  made  that  the 
writer's  letters  may  not  be  addressed  to  the  "  care 
of"  Madame  de  Stael,  since  he  is  not  her  guest, 
though  he  is  occupying  a  separate  apartment  in 
the  house  in  which  she  is  staying  at  Geneva  ;  but 
that  is  the  only  occurrence  of  her  name. 

Of  the  Diary  for  1 805  only  a  few  fragments  have 
been  preserved.  The  principal  fact  that  transpires 
is  that  Benjamin's  friends  are  still  trying  to  find 
a  wife  for  him.  "  It  is  evident,"  he  writes,  "that 
it  is  open  to  me  to  marry  either  Antoinette  or 
Adrienne,  and  that,  if  I  do  not  do  so,  I  am  renounc- 
ing with  a  light  heart  an  income  of  thirty  thousand 
francs."  But  he  does  renounce  that  income.  "  It 
would  be  the  best  plan,  so  far  as  my  work  is  con- 
cerned, but  Madame  de  Stael  has  resumed 
possession  of  me."  It  is  not  until  1806  that  the 
plot,  as  related  in  the  Diary,  thickens. 

The  entries  have  evidently  been  printed  in 
the  wrong  order,  and  it  is  impossible  to  be  sure 
of  reprinting  them  in  the  right  order ;  but  it 
seems  probable  that  the  passages  relating  to  the 
theatrical  performances  ought  to  come  first.  At 
any  rate,  we  may  give  them  separately. 

"  There  is  a  rehearsal  of  Merope,  and  I  allow 
myself  to  be  induced  to  play  *  Zopyre '  in 
Mahomet^  in  order  that  I  may  have  the  pleasure 

207 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

of  insulting  the  impostor.  Nevertheless,  I  am 
ill.  The  kind  of  life  which  I  am  leading  is 
opposed  to  physical  and  moral  health.  My 
ideas  are  shattered  by  this  agitation  of  society — 
a  monotonous  agitation,  for  wit  no  less  than  folly 
may  become  monotonous." 

"  A  performance  of  Merope,  admirably  played. 
A  complete  success,  quoique  point  de  bienveillance. 
I  hear  of  the  death  of  Madame  de  Charriere  de 
Tuyll.  Another  devoted  friend  is  lost  to  me. 
The  world  is  depopulated  for  my  heart." 

**  I  learn  the  part  of  *  Zopyre,'  in  which  I  shall 
display  a  superb  combination  of  strength  with 
paternal  affection.  But  I  am  dissatisfied  with  the 
first  rehearsal ;  my  gestures  are  bad." 

"  A  rehearsal  of  La  fausse  Agnes,  which  goes 
very  badly.  Mahomet  will  go  much  better.  I 
have  got  over  my  nervousness." 

"  The  public  performance  of  Mahomet  took 
place  yesterday.  I  played  very  well.  The 
success  was  complete.  We  also  played  Les 
Plaideurs.  Schlegel,  who  was  comic  in  tragedy, 
is  not  at  all  gay  in  comedy." 

*'  Performance  of  Phedre.  Madame  de  Stael 
plays  admirably.  I  have  acute  pains  in  my  side. 
Nature  is  treating  me  very  cavalierly  this  winter." 

It  was  natural  that  Madame  de  Stael  should 
play  admirably,  for  she  had  been  taught  elocution 
by  the  great  Clairon  ;  but  Benjamin  Constant's 
estimate  of  his  own  performance  was  not  that 
of  the   spectators.      Geneva   passed    upon   it   a 

208 


The  Developing  Drama  of  the  Heart 

criticism  which,  as  it  was  based  upon  a  pun, 
can  only  be  given  in  French:  "Je  ne  sais  pas 
si  c'^tait  le  roi  d'Epire,  mais  je  sais  bien  que 
c'^tait  le  pire  des  rois."  None  the  less,  his 
interest  in  the  drama  became  so  keen  that  he 
prepared  a  French  version  of  Wallenstein  for 
the  Coppet  stage. 

All  this,  however,  is  by  the  way.  One  relates 
it  merely  to  note  the  make-believe  of  gaiety  that 
coincided  with  the  developing  drama  of  the  heart. 
Benjamin  Constant  was  very  anxious,  during  this 
period,  to  serve  Madame  de  Stael's  interests  as 
a  friend.  He  tried  hard,  though  without  success, 
to  obtain  her  the  permission  which  she  sought 
to  visit  Paris.  But  the  storm  of  which  Sainte- 
Beuve's  story  gave  us  the  indication  is  already 
raging  beneath  the  surface,  though  the  cause 
which  was  to  bring  it  to  a  climax  does  not  yet 
transpire.     We  will  follow  it  stage  by  stage. 

"  Lausanne  is  dull.  Still,  if  a  quiet  life  were 
all  I  wanted,  I  should  find  it  here.  Passed  the 
evening  at  La  Chaumiere.  Antoinette  makes 
herself  agreeable." 

"  Got  up  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning.  I 
ought  always  to  do  so,  as  I  should  get  on  better 
with  my  work,  and  should  avoid  a  series  of 
melancholy  reflections  which  invariably  assail 
me  when  I  awake. 

"  Called  on  Madame  la  Gdn^rale.     Antoinette's 
hand  is  offered  to  me.     I  refuse  it.     I  shall  regret 
it,  but  the  form  of  Madame  de  Stael  rises  as  a 
reproach  between  me  and  all  my  projects. 
o  209 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  Dined  with  d'Arlens.  Spent  the  evening 
at  Dorigny.     I  think  Antoinette  Hkes  me.     She  is 

good  and  sweet.     Ifl  could  but How  restful 

it  would  be !  Why  not  profit  peaceably  by  the 
friendship  that  is  here  offered  to  me  ?  Is  not  real 
happiness  to  be  found  only  in  the  common  lot  ?  " 

"A  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael.  It  is  the 
collapse  of  the  universe,  and  the  movement  of 
chaos.  And  yet,  with  all  her  faults,  I  prefer  her 
to  everything  else.  I  decide  to  rejoin  her  at 
Auxerre.  I  am  in  a  state  of  uncertainty  about 
everything,  like  a  vessel  driven  by  two  opposing 
tempests." 

*'  My  father  being  ill,  I  go  to  Dole,  and  am 
detained  there  several  days.  My  father  is  gentle 
and  affectionate  with  me,  and  that  does  me  good. 
But  a  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael  overtakes  me. 
All  the  volcanoes  in  the  world  make  less  of  a 
blaze  than  she  does.  What  am  I  to  do }  The 
struggle  wears  me  out.  I  must  lie  down  in  my 
bark  and  go  to  sleep  in  the  midst  of  the  tempest." 

"  My  father  is  better,  and  I  start  for  Auxerre. 
The  chief  cause  of  the  agitation  of  my  life  is  the 
need  of  loving.     I  must  satisfy  it  at  all  costs." 

"I  go  to  Coppet,  where  Madame  de  Stael  is 
back  again.  The  poet  Monti  arrives  there.  He 
has  a  superb  face,  gentle  and  proud.  His  de- 
clamations in  verse  are  very  remarkable.  He 
is  a  true  poet,  passionate,  impetuous,  weak, 
nervous,  mobile,  the  Italian  analogue  of  Ch^nier, 
though  of  more  value  than  Chdnier. 

"In  the  evening  I  have  a  terrible  scene  with 

2IO 


Rupture  Imminent 

Madame  de  Stael.  I  announce  that  I  will 
definitely  break  with  her,  and  then  there  is  a 
second  scene.  Fury  ;  reconciliation  impossible  ; 
departure  difficult.     I  must  get  married." 

"  I  hear  of  the  bankruptcy  of  M.  R^camier. 
Here  is  trouble  for  another  of  my  friends !  Does 
misfortune  only  befall  the  good  ?  Madame  de 
Stael  has  reconquered  me.'' 

"  Back  at  Geneva,  where  I  establish  myself 
to  get  on  more  steadily  with  my  work.  I  re-read 
several  passages  of  my  book  on  philosophy. 
I  am  satisfied  with  it,  but  I  have  still  much 
ground  to  cover,  and  town  life  does  not  allow 
me  to  get  on  with  it.  One  cannot  desert  all 
one's  friends  and  sulk  with  the  whole  world. 
Still,  I  am  sick  to  death  of  society  gossip. 
To-day  it  has  given  me  a  fever.  I  pass  the 
evening  with  Amelie  Fabri." 

*'  Dinner  with  Madame  de  Germany,  and 
supper  with  Argand ;  the  whole  business  very 
tiresome. 

"It  is  still  my  inclination  to  break  with 
Madame  de  Stael ;  but  every  time  that  I  feel 
that  inclination  I  am  destined  to  receive  the 
contrary  impression  on  the  following  day. 
Nevertheless,  her  impetuosity  and  her  imprudences 
are  a  torment  and  a  perpetual  danger  to  me. 
Let  us  break  it  off,  then,  if  we  can.  It  is  my  one 
chance  of  a  quiet  life." 

"  Schlegel  is  very  ill ;  his  fears  are  ridiculous. 
He  demands  doctors  right  and  left.  There 
comes  a  German  physician,   who  proves  to  be 

211 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

a  man  of  learning  and  intelligence.  Decidedly 
there  is  more  profundity  in  that  nation  than  in  ours. 
"  A  letter  from  Madame  Lindsay,  who  always 
writes  as  if  I  were  persecuting  her  to  let  me 
see  her.  A  singular  device,  for  I  do  not  even 
dream  of  doing  so.  One  finds  the  queerest  ideas 
with  this  half  of  the  human  race,  as  witness  the 
wrath  of  Mme  C.  because  I  permitted  myself  to 
say  that  her  son  was  like  her." 

"I  enter  to-day,  October  25,  1806,  upon  my 
fortieth  year.  All  my  life  has  been  agitated, 
but  never  have  I  suffered  such  anguish  and 
uncertainty  as  at  present." 

"Off  again  to  Paris,  to  work  on  behalf  of 
Madame  de  Stael." 

"  A  journey  to  my  farm  near  Etampes.  What 
an  oyster's  life  is  that  of  a  farmer !  But  perhaps 
it  is  the  better  sort  of  life." 

So  the  Diary  for  the  year  concludes.  The 
passages  quoted,  though  stormy,  are  only  the 
premonitory  symptoms  of  the  storm  to  come. 
If  they  show  the  writer  tiring  of  his  mistress,  at 
least  they  do  not  show  him  attracted  by  any 
other  woman.  That  new  fact  does  not  appear 
in  the  correspondence  until  1807,  when  Charlotte 
comes  into  the  story. 

We  have  met  her  before  in  this  narrative. 
She  was  Mile  von  Hardenberg,  afterwards 
Madame  von  Marenholz,  and  now  Madame 
Dutertre,  the  wife  of  a  French  Emigre  for  whom 
we  have  seen  the  Diarist  expressing  his  contempt. 

212 


Madame  Dutertre 

He  had  first  met  her  at  Brunswick  in  the  days 
of  the  liaison  with  Madame  de  Charriere.  There 
are  references  to  her,  not  in  the  best  taste,  in  the 
letters  to  Madame  de  Charriere.  It  would  seem 
that  she  threw  herself  at  Benjamin  Constant's 
head,  and  that,  while  flirting  with  her,  he  laughed 
at  her,  and  then  repented  and  felt  ashamed. 
He  therefore  begs  Madame  de  Charriere  to  burn 
the  letters  relating  to  her,  since,  **  if  they  fell 
into  the  hands  of  strangers,  they  would  give  the 
final  blow  to  my  moribund  reputation  ; "  and  the 
presumption  is  that  Madame  de  Charriere  com- 
plied with  the  request. 

Strangely  enough,  however,  Charlotte  was  not 
forgotten,  and  we  have  noted  the  mention  of  her 
name  in  the  letters  to  Cousin  Rosalie.  The 
writer  sent  no  message,  but  merely  made  in- 
quiries. Or  rather,  he  wanted  to  know  whether 
Charlotte,  on  her  part,  remembered  and  inquired. 
To  that  extent — though  to  that  extent  only — his 
heart  had  travelled  back  to  her.  She  had  been 
a  very  restful  woman,  not  in  the  least  exacting  ; 
she  had  not,  like  Madame  de  Stael,  made  scenes 
with  him.  There  was  a  certain  tranquillity  even 
in  the  consecration  of  memories  and  sighs  to  her. 
And  now  he  met  her  again. 

He  was  at  Paris  at  the  time,  '*  working  for 
Madame  de  Stael " ;  and  he  writes  on  this 
subject,  and  on  others. 

•'  I  have  seen  Fouch6  several  times.  I  will 
not  weary  of  serving   Madame  de   Stael,  but  I 

215 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

meet  with  a  great  deal  of  opposition.  I  am 
going  to  write  a  novel  which  will  be  the  history 
of  my  life.  All  serious  work  has  become  impos- 
sible to  me  in  the  midst  ofmy  tormented  life.  .  .  . 
"...  I  have  finished  my  novel  in  a  fortnight. 
I  have  read  it  to  Hochet,  who  is  very  pleased 
with  it." 

The  novel  thus  dashed  off  in  a  fortnight  was 
Adolphe — the  one  vital  and  enduring  book  that 
Benjamin  Constant  wrote.  He  is  sometimes 
called  Adolphe  after  his  hero,  just  as  Madame  de 
Stael  is  called  Corinne  after  her  heroine.  He 
did  not  publish  it,  however,  until  several  years 
later,  and  discussion  of  it  may  for  the  present  be 
deferred.  Our  business  now  is  with  the  impres- 
sion which  Charlotte  made  upon  her  reappearance. 
Allusions  to  her  alternate  with  allusions  to 
Madame  de  Stael — her  business  and  her  anger — 
to  the  writer's  work,  and  to  his  health. 

"  I  am  now  at  my  country  seat,  and  more  quiet. 
I  have  resumed  my  great  work  on  Religion,  and  I 
am  getting  on  very  well  with  it.  It  has  made 
great  progress,  but  now  I  am  off  again  to  join 
Madame  de  Stael  at  Acosta.  She  wants  me  for 
her  business,  which  seems  to  be  taking  a  turn 
for  the  better.    More  travelling !    More  packing ! " 

"A  letter  from  my  father,  who  demands  my 
presence.  He  wants  me  to  go  to  Besan9on  and 
get  myself  in  a  further  mess  with  his  new  family.^ 
I  will  not  do  it.  Dinner  with  M.  de  Wimont. 
One  man  bores  me  as  much  as  another.  I  have 
^  Benjamin's  father  had  married  his  housekeeper. 
214 


Proposition  made  to  M.  Dutertre 

seen  Garat  about  Madame  de  Stael's  permit. 
I  hope  she  will  have  time  to  finish  the  publication 
of  Corinne.  The  articles  which  I  have  just  pub- 
lished on  this  work  have  had  a  great  succsss." 

"  I  often  visit  Madame  Dutertre.  She  has  a 
great  charm  for  me.  There  is  something  piquant 
in  her  intelligence,  and  she  has  that  sweetness 
and  goodness  which  always  have  the  effect  of 
making  me  happy.  I  feel  that  a  union  with  her 
would  be  the  repose  of  my  life.  If  M.  Dutertre 
is  willing  to  break  ties  to  which  he  seems  to 
attach  little  importance,  my  future  is  there,  and 
Charlotte  accepts  the  proposal." 

Benjamin  means,  that  is  to  say,  to  marry 
Madame  Dutertre  if  M.  Dutertre  can  be  per- 
suaded to  divorce  her.  He  was  ultimately 
persuaded  by  means  of  a  considerable  cash  pay- 
ment. In  the  meantime,  however,  Madame  de 
Stael  had  obtained  at  least  an  inkling  of  what 
was  happening. 

"A  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael.  What  a 
Fury!     Heaven  save  us  from  each  other! 

"  Passed  the  evening  at  Madame  R^camier's 
with  Fauriel.  I  read  theni  my  novel,  which  affected 
them  strangely.  The  character  of  the  hero  revolts 
them.     Decidedly  people  cannot  understand  me." 

"  My  eyes  are  getting  worse.     I  have  consulted 

V .     It  is  a  weakening  of  the  optic  nerve,  and 

what  I  want  is  rest.  They  applied  a  seton.  The 
physical  pain  is  nothing.  A  letter  from  Madame 
de  Stael  arrives  at  this  moment,  and  her  insults 
find  me  covered  with  blood  and  fainting." 

215 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Madame  de  Stael,  however,  had  reason  for 
her  jealousy,  and  her  lover  was  not  so  ill  that  he 
could  not  press  his  suit  with  Madame  Dutertre. 

"  Called  upon  Madame  Dutertre,  whose  appear- 
ance has  much  improved.  I  make  proposals  to 
her  which  she  does  not  reject.  This  evening  I 
shall  be  master  of  the  citadel.  The  resistance 
has  lasted  long  enough." 

"  I  go  to  the  country  with  Charlotte.  She  is 
an  angel  of  sweetness  and  charm.  I  love  her 
more  and  more  every  day.  She  is  gentle  and 
lovable.  How  mad  a  fool  I  was  to  repel  her 
twelve  years  ago !  What  a  mad  passion  for 
independence  it  was  that  dominated  me,  and 
ended  by  placing  me  under  the  domination  of  the 
most  imperious  creature  in  the  world ! " 

"  We  return  to  Paris.  Mad  days  ;  delights  of 
love.  What  the  devil  does  it  all  mean?  It  is 
twelve  years  since  I  felt  anything  of  the  sort — 
how  mad !  This  woman  whose  love  I  have 
refused  a  hundred  times,  who  has  always  loved 
me,  whom  I  have  repeatedly  repulsed,  whom  I 
quitted  without  regret  eighteen  months  ago,  to 
whom  I  have  written  a  hundred  indifferent  letters, 
from  whom  I  took  away  my  own  letters  only  last 
Monday — this  same  woman  is  turning  my  head 
to-day.  Evidently  the  comparison  with  Madame 
de  Stael  is  the  cause  of  it  all.  The  contrast 
between  her  impetuosity,  her  egoism,  her  constant 
occupation  with  herself,  and  Charlotte's  calm, 
humility,  and  modesty,  and  sweetness,  makes  the 
latter  a  thousand  times  more  dear  to  me.  I  am 
tired  of  the  *  man-woman,'  whose  iron  hand  has 

216 


A  Momentary  Reaction 

held  me  enchained  for  ten  years,  when  I  have 
with  me  a  woman  who  is  really  a  woman  to 
intoxicate  and  enchant  me.  If  I  can  marry  her, 
I  hesitate  no  longer.  Everything  depends  upon 
the  line  taken  by  M.  Dutertre." 

For  a  moment  there  ensues  reaction,  and  an 
alarming  premonition. 

**  Passed  the  evening  with  Charlotte.  Can  it 
be  that  the  fever  is  passing  and  the  boredom 
beginning  ?  I  am  devilishly  afraid  it  is.  She  is 
full  of  charm,  it  is  true,  but  there  is  little  variety 
about  her,  and  she  is  of  a  very  restless  tempera- 
ment." 

It  seems,  however,  that  he  has  wronged  her, 
or  misread  his  heart,  for  now  we  read  : — 

"A  touching  letter  from  Charlotte.  I  am 
unjust  to  her.  She  is  an  angel.  A  stiff  and 
bitter  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael.  My  God, 
how  she  bores  me ! " 

"  People  are  talking  about  me,  not  in  the 
kindest  manner.  They  are  already  talking  of 
the  effect  of  the  double  divorce,  arranged  for  a 
purpose  settled  in  advance.  No  matter.  Char- 
lotte is  an  angel,  and  an  insipid  society  need 
not  think  that  its  opinion  will  prevent  me  from 
marrying  her.  And  yet,  what  obstacles  there 
are !  I  shudder  at  the  thought  of  a  wife  who 
will  not  be  received  anywhere.  Perhaps  I  shall 
bury  myself  at  Lausanne.  Otherwise  I  am  sure 
I  shall  commit  suicide  within  six  months." 

*•  Lunch    with    G^rando.  .  .  .   Pack     up     my 
217 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

manuscripts.  I  have  twelve  thousand  francs  at 
my  disposal.  Will  that  help  me  to  bring  about 
a  rupture  and  a  marriage  in  which  I  shall  find 
peace  ?  " 

Hardly  has  he  written  that,  however,  than  the 
old  influence  reasserts  itself.  Benjamin  is  back 
with  Madame  de  Stael,  **  under  pretence  of  help- 
ing her  with  her  affairs."  He  speaks  of  "  scenes," 
and  the  consciousness  on  both  sides  that  rupture 
is  imminent.  M.  Dutertre,  meanwhile,  is  feign- 
ing jealousy  and  raising  his  price,  and  Benjamin 
wavers  in  spite  of  the  contrast  between  Charlotte's 
sweet  reasonableness  and  "this  fury  who  pursues 
me,  foaming  at  the  mouth,  with  a  dagger  in  her 
hand."  At  last,  however,  his  agreement  is  con- 
cluded. The  husband's  application  for  divorce  is 
despatched  to  Germany.     But  then  : — 

"  Madame  de  Stael  is  on  my  track  again.  She 
will  no  longer  hear  of  the  breach  of  our  relations. 
My  simplest  course  is  not  to  see  her  again,  but  to 
wait  at  Lausanne  for  the  orders  of  Charlotte — 
that  angel  whom  I  bless  for  saving  me.  Schlegel 
writes  that  Madame  de  Stael  says  she  will  kill 
herself  if  I  leave  her.  I  don't  believe  a  word  of 
it,  but  it  is  an  untimely  rumour  for  my  ears.  I 
feel  that  I  shall  be  regarded  as  a  monster  if  I  do 
abandon  her ;  if  I  do  not  abandon  her,  I  shall  die. 
I  regret  her,  and  I  hate  her." 

Then  he  is  lured  to  Coppet  in  a  melting  mood, 
but,  after  a  scene  of  reconciliation,  makes  his 
escape  to  Lausanne.     In  vain. 

218 


Fruitless  Endeavours  to  Escape 

"  Alas  !  What  was  the  use  of  flight  ?  Madame 
de  Stael  is  here,  and  all  my  plans  are  overturned. 
There  is  a  frightful  scene,  lasting  till  five  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  I  am  violent,  and  put  myself  in 
the  wrong.  Instead  of  finding  support  here 
[from  his  relatives],  I  only  meet  with  anathemas 
against  a  woman  capable  of  a  double  divorce. 
Poor  dear  Charlotte,  I  will  not  desert  you." 

None  the  less,  he  is  dragged  off  again  to  Coppet, 
and  compelled  to  take  part  in  the  theatrical  per- 
formances. Charlotte  does  not  write,  and  he  is 
afraid  that  the  agony  of  his  mind  may  cause 
him  to  forget  his  lines.  He  observes  that  the 
Chevalier  de  Langallerie — the  head  of  a  sect 
of  mystics  at  Lausanne — is  fascinated  by  Madame 
de  Stael.  He  wishes  she  would  yield  herself  to 
him,  "as  that  would  give  her  something  to  do." 
He  adds :  "  I  have  lunched  with  the  Chevalier, 
and  done  what  I  can  to  induce  Madame  de  Stael 
to  accept  the  consolations  which  he  offers  her." 
But  it  is  useless:  "she  is  not  ready  to  become 
religious."  He  is  only  comforted  when  a  long 
letter  from  Charlotte  at  last  arrives.  "  How 
sensible  she  is  !  "  he  exclaims.  "  How  reasonable, 
and  how  affectionate!"  It  is  a  further  comfort 
to  discover  that  his  aunt,  Madame  de  Nassau, 
is  not  so  scandalised  as  he  had  supposed.  "  She 
says  shewill  receive  Charlotte  with  every  kindness," 
and  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  rest  of  the  family 
will  follow  her  lead.  He  will  act  at  once,  there- 
fore ;  he  will  be  off  on  the  morrow.     But  then  : — 

219 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

*'  What  did  I  say  ?  Everything  is  upside  down 
again,  and  this  effort  is  impossible  to  me.  My 
letter  is  torn  up.  Some  magic  power  overrules 
me.  I  am  going  to  Coppet.  Good  God !  What 
am  I  going  to  do  there  ?  " 

"  She  came ;  she  threw  herself  at  my  feet ;  she 
uttered  fearful  cries  of  pain  and  desolation.  A 
heart  of  iron  could  not  have  resisted.  I  am  back 
at  Coppet  with  her,  and  I  have  promised  to 
remain  for  six  weeks,  and  Charlotte  is  expecting 
me  at  the  end  of  the  month.  Good  God !  What 
am  I  to  do  ?  I  am  trampling  my  future  and  my 
happiness  under  foot" 

One  of  the  things  which  he  does  is  to  adapt 
Wallenstein  for  Madame  de  Stael's  theatre.  He 
works  desperately  hard  at  it,  composing  no  less 
than  328  lines  of  verse  in  a  single  day.  He  is 
rather  pleased  with  the  result ;  he  reads  the  first 
act  to  the  company,  and  is  applauded,  though  his 
acting  is  a  sorry  performance.  But  he  still  drags 
at  his  chains,  though  occasionally  tempted  to  let 
them  be  riveted  on  him  afresh. 

"  A  letter  from  Charlotte,  more  loving  and  more 
sure  of  me  than  ever.  Would  she  forgive  me  if 
she  knew  where  I  am  and  what  I  am  doing  ? 
How  slowly  the  time  passes !  Into  what  abysm 
have  I  thrown  myself?  A  terrible  scene  in  the 
evening.  Shall  I  get  out  of  it  alive  ?  I  have  to 
pass  my  time  in  lying  and  deception  to  avoid  the 
frenzy  which  frightens  me.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  hope  afforded  by  Madame  de  Stael's  approach- 
ing departure  for  Vienna,  this  existence  would  be 

220 


A  Curious  Position 

intolerable  to  me.  To  console  myself  I  pass  my 
time  in  imagining  how  things  will  go  if  they  go 
well.  This  is  my  castle  in  the  air.  Charlotte 
finishes  her  arrangements  and  makes  her  prepara- 
tions in  secret.  Madame  de  Stael  starts  for 
Vienna,  suspecting  nothing.  I  marry  Charlotte, 
and  we  spend  the  winter  pleasantly  at  Lausanne. 
If  that  can  be  contrived,  I  shall  know  how  to 
profit  by  my  happiness." 

"  My  tragedy  makes  great  progress ;  it  is  a 
pleasant  occupation  for  me.  The  time  passes, 
but  the  dangers  remain.  Madame  de  Stael  is 
very  useful  to  me  for  my  tragedy,  and  she  is 
so  good  and  so  gentle  to  me,  that  if  it  were  not 
for  the  recollection  of  past  violences,  the  attach- 
ment would  revive.  Nevertheless,  my  social 
position  is  curious.  Here  am  I  between  two 
women — one  of  whom  has  wronged  me  by 
refusing  to  marry  me,  while  the  other,  by  marry- 
ing me,  will  do  me  an  injury." 

"  Madame  de  Stael  resumes  her  terrible 
character.  I  work  furiously  to  deaden  my  feel- 
ings. I  read  two  acts  to  Chateauvieux,  who  is 
delighted  with  them.  What  a  torture  it  is  to 
live  with  a  person  who  is  always  feeling  the 
pulse  of  her  own  sensibility,  and  gets  angry 
when  one  does  not  take  sufficient  interest  in 
this  self-analysis ! 

"  A  letter  from  Charlotte.  She  knows  every- 
thing. She  is  sad  and  discouraged,  but  remains 
faithful  to  me.  I  will  not  desert  her.  My  God ! 
If  only  the  other  would  take  her  departure ! " 

"  Went  to  Lausanne.     Everybody  disapproves 

221 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

of  my  return  to  Coppet.  Phedre  is  produced 
again.  Madame  de  Stael  plays  admirably.  My 
tragedy  is  becoming  a  pretext  to  prolong  my 
stay." 

"Charlotte's  character  is  admirably  loyal  and 
reasonable,  but  her  vacillating  conduct  might 
push  her  to  extremes,  especially  when  she  arrives 
at  Besan9on  and  finds  that  I  am  not  there.  My 
father  writes  that  he  wants  to  come  to  me  here — 
there  remained  but  that!  Madame  de  Stael  is 
certainly  very  good,  and  of  great  intelligence. 
My  piece  will  be  superb.  I  have  only  i8o  lines 
to  write  to  finish  it." 

"  Charlotte  is  at  Besancon  in  despair,  and  my 
future  is  in  peril.  I  can  hesitate  no  longer.  My 
father  will  serve  me  as  a  pretext,  and  I  am  off." 

"  Besancon. — I  find  Charlotte  very  ill.  She  is 
in  delirium,  and  shudders  at  the  sound  of  my 
voice,  crying  out :  *  That  is  the  man  who  is 
killing  me.'  I  throw  myself  at  the  feet  of 
Providence,  to  ask  pardon  for  my  criminal 
follies,  and  pray  for  strength  to  get  out  of  this 
terrible  position." 

"After  some  days  of  suffering  and  anguish, 
Charlotte  begins  to  recover.  Her  courage  and 
her  confidence  in  me  have  returned  to  her,  and 
my  happiness  is  assured. 

"  Nevertheless,  I  have  again  written  three  times 
to  Madame  de  Stael — letters  which  will  perhaps 
cause  her  pain.  But  it  must  be  so.  The  final 
moment  is  approaching." 


222 


CHAPTER   XIX 

Stormy  scenes  at  Coppet — Benjamin's  confidences  to  his  aunt — 
His  endeavours  to  escape — He  joins  Charlotte  at  Brevans. 

The  Journal  Intime  breaks  off  abruptly  in 
1807,  not  to  be  resumed  until  181 1  ;  so  that,  for 
the  rest  of  our  story,  we  have  to  seek  other 
sources  of  information.  The  material,  however, 
is  abundant.  We  know  what  Benjamin  told  his 
aunt  and  his  cousin ;  we  know  what  Rosalie  told 
her  brother  Charles. 

Rosalie,  at  this  stage,  was  only  partly  in  her 
cousin's  confidence.  His  letters  to  her  do  not 
mention  Charlotte,  though  they  are  full  of  his 
desire  for  a  definitive  separation  from  Madame 
de  Stael.  "  My  love  for  her,"  he  writes,  "is  only 
friendship,  and  I  know  that  this  friendship  will  be 
flouted  as  soon  as  it  ceases  to  be  the  determining 
factor  of  my  life ; "  and  he  adds  that  his  wish  to 
act  with  consideration  is  reducing  him  to  despair. 
"  The  end  of  a  liaison  that  has  lasted  so  long  with 
a  person  whose  qualities  are  so  admirable,  the 
idea  that  I  cannot  induce  her  to  accept  my  friend- 
ship as  a  substitute  for  a  tie  which  is  no  longer  a 
source  of  happiness  to  either  of  us,  the  strange 
feeling  that  nothing  that  I  may  do  to-day  will  in 
the  least  diminish  her  dissatisfaction  with  what 

223 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

I  am  going  to  do  presently — all  this  darkens  my 
thoughts  and  makes  my  life  heavy  and  melancholy." 

He  protests  that  he  is  being  treated  badly : 
"  Returning  here  [to  Paris  at  the  end  of  June 
1807],  I  found  letters  awaiting  me,  too  cruel  to 
be  addressed  to  a  highway  robber,  and  she  has 
written  others  to  mutual  friends  in  which  she  says 
the  most  awful  things  about  my  character.  It 
is  hard  to  have  to  submit  to  that  after  having 
accompanied  her,  for  the  last  year,  from  inn  to 
inn,  accommodating  myself  to  a  life  absolutely 
opposed  to  my  tastes  and  exceedingly  bad  for  my 
health,  resigning  myself  to  be  misunderstood  and 
misjudged  by  the  world — all  because  she  was  in 
exile  and  was  unhappy."  The  "perpetual  move- 
ment," he  exclaims,  is  a  weariness  to  him  ;  but  he 
none  the  less  lets  himself  be  lured  back  to  Coppet, 
where  furious  scenes  are  once  more  enacted.  He 
complains  of  "a  combination  of  violence  and 
affection  which  shakes  my  soul  to  its  foundations." 
Argument  is  in  vain.  Madame  de  Stael  threatens 
to  kills  herself  if  she  is  abandoned.  "Her  children, 
her  servants,  her  friends,  her  acquaintances  are  all 
in  her  confidence  with  regard  to  this  threat,  and 
they  all  regard  me  as  a  monster  because  I  do  not 
appease  her  sufferings."  But  what  is  to  be  done  ? 
"  I  pass  my  days  in  disputing  with  her,  and  my 
nights  in  weeping  over  her." 

Benjamin,  as  we  have  already  seen,  fled  from 
his  tumultuous  surroundings  and  sought  refuge  at 
Lausanne,  where  Madame  de  Stael  speedily  came 

224 


Rosalie  de  Constant  Intervenes 

to  fetch  him.  His  own  narrative  of  the  incident, 
however,  is  tame  and  cold  compared  with  that  of 
his  cousin  Rosalie,  who,  at  least  at  that  hour,  held 
Madame  de  Stael  in  abhorrence.  "  When,"  she 
writes,  "he  was  alarmed  for  his  failing  eyesight, 
instead  of  consoling  him,  she  wrote  him  insulting 
letters.  When,  in  his  convalescence,  he  came  to 
his  father's  house  for  rest,  she  had  him  taken  away 
by  her  valet  Eugene  and  her  pedant  Schlegel, 
threatening  to  follow  and  kill  herself  before  their 
eyes  if  he  did  not  come.  You  can  imagine  my 
uncle's  annoyance  and  indignation."  It  seemed 
an  occasion,  therefore,  for  Rosalie  to  call  at  Coppet 
and  speak  her  mind.  "  I  spoke  to  her,"  she  tells 
her  brother,  "  with  the  greatest  frankness.  I  told 
her  that,  when  she  was  free,  my  wish  was  that  she 
should  marry  Benjamin,  as  an  act  of  reparation, 
and  because  of  their  similarity  of  mind,  character, 
{  etc.  I  added  that,  in  not  marrying,  they  had  shown 
their  contempt  for  each  other,  and  that,  subse- 
quently, the  preferences  which  she  had  displayed 
for  other  men  had  put  Benjamin  in  the  most 
awkward  position,  that  he  did  not  deserve  such 
treatment,  and  that  she  could  not  reproach  me 
with  anything  except  my  desire  for  his  happiness 
and  good  name.  She  replied  that,  sooner  than 
lose  him,  she  would  marry  him  whenever  I  liked, 
and  that  I  had  better  occupy  myself  with  hastening 
the  event.  I  did  not  allow  myself  to  be  sup- 
pressed, but  the  conversation  ended  more  amiably 
than  it  began,  and  on  such  a  note  that  we  may 
p  225 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

see  each  other  again."  And  then  follows  the 
account  of  the  most  impetuous  of  all  the  scenes 
in  which  Madame  de  Stael  sought  happiness  in 
love.  It  is  a  long  letter,  but  it  is  so  graphically- 
expressed  that  it  must  be  given  in  full. 

*'  My  friendship  had  not  the  strength  to  contend 
against  the  furious  passions  of  this  terrible  woman. 
I  have  already  told  you  about  my  conversation 
with  the  too  celebrated  one,  my  promise  to  hold 
my  tongue  about  it  until  their  departure,  and  their 
plans  for  playing  a  tragedy.  The  tragedy  was  a 
great  success.  Never  has  Hermione  been  played 
with  so  much  fire  and  conviction.  After  the 
performance,  which  was  indeed  very  agreeable 
and  very  brilliant,  they  went  away.  Benjamin 
stayed  behind,  vaguely  promising  to  join  them 
in  a  few  days'  time,  but  fully  resolved  upon 
breaking  off  his  relations  with  her,  while  re- 
maining upon  friendly  terms.  He  was  very 
agitated,  and  most  uncertain  how  to  set  about 
it,  but  quite  sure  that  no  method  would  be  satis- 
factory. He  was  taken  in  hand  by  the  Chevalier  ^ 
and  Lisette,  who,  seeing  him  unhappy,  tried  to 
help  him  after  their  fashion.  He  tried  their 
moral  opium ;  but  his  reason  and  intelligence 
did  not  like  the  taste  of  it  In  the  midst  of  all 
that,  the  lady,  observing  that  he  did  not  come  to 
her,  sent  her  horses,  her  carriage,  her  servants — 
the  whole  caravan,  in  short — to  fetch  him. 

"  Early  one  morning  he  enters  the  room,  and 

announces  :  '  I  am  going  to  Coppet ; '  and  then  he 

falls  into  a  fit  of  despair  that  would  have  touched 

your  heart.     I  cried  bitterly  for  him.     My  aunt 

^  M.  de  Langallerie. 

226 


An  Extraordinary  Scene 

and  Madame  de  Nassau  met,  and  he  accepted 
their  advice — that  he  should  put  an  end  to  the 
situation  by  offering  the  lady  the  alternative  of 
an  early  marriage  or  an  amicable  rupture.  He  sets 
out,  believing  himself  firm  in  this  resolve. 

"  On  the  following  day,  before  nine  o'clock,  we 
see  him  arrive  on  horseback,  ready  to  drop  from 
fatigue.  He  tells  us  that,  in  answer  to  the  re- 
proaches with  which  she  greeted  him,  he  had 
made  the  proposal  agreed  upon.  Her  reply  was 
to  assemble  her  children  and  their  tutor  and  say  : 
'  There  is  the  man  who  obliges  me  to  choose 
between  despair  and  the  necessity  of  com- 
promising your  existence  and  your  fortune.' 
Benjamin  answers  this  unworthy  accusation  with 
a  formal  protest  that  he  will  never  marry  her. 
Then  she  gets  up,  throws  herself,  screaming,  on 
the  ground,  passes  her  handkerchief  round  her 
neck  to  throttle  herself,  and  in  fact  makes  one  of 
those  fearful  scenes  which  she  can  always  make 
when  she  chooses,  and  which  poor  Benjamin 
cannot  resist.  He  was  weak  enough  to  end  by 
speaking  words  of  tenderness.  On  the  following 
morning,  however,  he  woke  early,  and  once  more 
perceived  the  horror  of  his  position.  He  comes 
downstairs,  finds  his  horse  in  the  yard,  mounts, 
and  rides  here  without  stopping.  We  did  what  we 
could,  and  Madame  de  Nassau,  who  is  very  fond 
of  him,  though  she  blames  his  weakness,  joined  us 
in  consoling  him  and  fortifying  his  resolutions. 

"  When  we  had  agreed  upon  a  reasonable  plan, 
she  left  us,  and  Benjamin  was  beginning  to  calm 
himself  when  we  heard  screams  below.  He  re- 
cognised her  voice.  My  first  impulse  was  to  leave 
the  room  and  lock  him  in.     Going  out,  I  find  her 

227 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

on  her  back  on  the  staircase,  with  her  bosom  bare, 
and  her  dishevelled  locks  sweeping  the  steps. 
'  Where  is  he  ? '  she  screams.  *  I  must  find  him 
again.'  My  idea  is  to  say  that  he  is  not  here. 
She  has  been  looking  for  him  all  over  the  town. 
My  aunt  lifts  her  to  her  feet,  and  leads  her  into 
your  room.  Meanwhile  Benjamin  is  knocking 
at  the  door  of  the  drawing-room,  and  I  have 
to  open  it.  She  hears  him,  runs  to  him,  throws 
herself  into  his  arms,  and  then  falls  on  the  floor 
again,  uttering  the  most  bitter  reproaches. 
'  What  right  have  you,'  I  ask  her,  *  to  make  him 
miserable,  and  torment  his  life } '  Whereupon 
she  overwhelms  me  with  the  most  cruel  insults 
that  you  can  imagine.  In  my  indignation  at  this 
dreadful  scene,  at  the  gentleness  of  my  aunt, 
whom  she  has  been  cunning  enough  to  flatter,  and 
at  the  fact  that  Benjamin  does  not  take  my  part 
as  he  ought,  I  go  out  to  tell  Madame  de  Nassau 
all  about  it,  and  remain  at  her  house  while  she 
comes  here.  She  did  not  show  any  anger,  how- 
ever, but  only  spoke  to  Benjamin.  The  upshot  of 
it  all  was  that  she  carried  him  off  to  Coppet  for  six 
weeks.  He  writes  us  letters  thence,  full  of  friend- 
ship, but  fairly  calm,  acquiescing  in  a  strength 
greater  than  his  own,  and,  as  it  were,  touched  by 
this  last  terrible  proof  of  her  love.  What  do  you 
think  of  this  conclusion  ?  " 

The  conclusion,  however,  was  not  yet.  We 
have  only  reached  the  stage  at  which,  as  we  have 
seen  from  the  Diary,  Benjamin  found  himself  held 
by  the  double  promise  to  stay  six  weeks  with 
Madame  de  Stael,  and  to  meet  Charlotte  at  the 

228 


Madame  de  Nassau's  Attitude 

end  of  the  month,  Madame  de  Nassau  knew 
about  Charlotte  though  Rosalie  did  not,  and  our 
best  definition  of  Benjamin's  attitude  towards  the 
two  women  is  to  be  found  in  the  letters  which  he 
wrote,  not  to  his  cousin,  but  to  his  aunt. 

One  feels  that  this  aunt  must  have  been  a  very 
charming  and  also  a  very  sensible  old  lady. 
She  evidently  realised — what  so  many  ladies  fail 
to  realise — that  fault-finding  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  helpful  counsel,  and  that  sympathy  with  the  love 
troubles  of  a  man  of  forty  generally  means  making 
the  best  of  a  bad  situation.  The  entanglement 
with  Madame  de  Stael  did  not  please  her,  but 
she  did  not  waste  her  time  in  deploring  it. 
Charlotte,  the  twice-divorced,  was  not  the  wife 
she  would  herself  have  selected  for  her  nephew  ; 
but  she  respected  her  nephew's  choice,  and 
promised  to  be  not  only  polite  but  cordial.  He 
rewarded  her  with  such  confidences  as  aunts  do 
not  often  receive. 

The  degree  and  character  of  the  confidence 
subsisting  between  them  may  perhaps  be  best 
measured  by  an  extract  from  a  letter  which  has 
no  direct  bearing  on  the  writer's  personal  affairs. 
Benjamin  was  reporting  the  death  of  Madame 
Cottin,  the  novelist.  "  She  was  very  ugly,"  he 
writes,  "  but  she  had  inspired  grand  passions.  A 
young  man  committed  suicide  on  her  doorstep 
because  of  her  cruelty,  and  her  kindnesses  caused 
the  death  of  an  old  man  of  seventy.  The  story 
is  the  antithesis  of  that  of  the  lance  of  Achilles. 

229 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

She  died  in  a  very  religious  frame  of  mind  at 
the  age  of  thirty-four.  Religion — I  say  it  in  all 
sincerity — religion  is  an  admirable  thing,  because 
no  antecedents  stand  in  its  way.  It  can  be  grafted 
on  ambition,  on  love,  on  any  passion  whatsoever, 
and  the  graft  is  successful  at  all  periods  of  life." 

An  aunt  to  whom  a  nephew  could  write,  with- 
out rebuke,  like  that  was  an  aunt  whom  he  could 
trust  with  his  secrets  without  fear  of  censorious 
criticism ;  and  Benjamin's  letters  to  Madame  de 
Nassau  are  indeed  of  an  open-hearted  and  con- 
vincing candour.  His  love  for  Charlotte  veritably 
bubbles  over.  She  is  "  so  pure,  so  natural,  and 
so  sweet,"  that  he  cannot  be  an  hour  in  her  com- 
pany without  feeling  that  his  whole  life  has  been 
lifted  on  to  a  new  plane  of  happiness  and  tran- 
quillity. He  insists  that  this  is  no  transitory 
impression,  but  that  Charlotte  has  always  affected 
him  thus  every  time  that  he  has  met  her  during 
the  last  four  years.  At  the  same  time  he  is  most 
sensible  of  his  obligations  towards  Madame  de 
Stael,  and  most  anxious  not  to  cause  her  any 
avoidable  pain  ;  and  it  seems  to  him  a  fresh 
charm  in  Charlotte's  character  that  she  shares  his 
feelings  in  this  respect,  and  makes  no  objection  to 
his  paying  yet  another  visit  to  Coppet.  He  is 
aware  that  he  is  guilty  of  deception,  and  that  the 
world  would  judge  him  severely  if  it  knew  the 
facts ;  but  he  protests  that,  throughout  the  whole 
of  his  tortuous  transactions,  his  motives  have 
always  been  good.     The  happiness  of  Madame  de 

230 


The  Betrothal  still  a  Secret 

Stael,  no  less  than  of  Charlotte,  is,  in  some  sense, 
a  deposit  in  his  charge.  He  must  therefore 
postpone  his  union  with  the  latter  until  the  former 
is  provided  with  "  the  distractions  of  which  she 
stands  in  need."  And  so  forth,  through  a  long 
series  of  letters,  in  the  tone  of  a  man  who  suffers 
at  once  from  hypertrophy  of  the  conscience  and 
atrophy  of  the  will. 

This  was  in  1808.  The  Coppet  gaieties  were 
renewed  in  the  summer  of  that  year.  Tieck,  the 
sculptor,  came  there  to  make  a  bust  of  the  hostess, 
who  was  repeating  her  triumphs  on  the  amateur 
stage,  alike  as  authoress  and  actress.  The  house 
was  full  of  people.  Benjamin  was  revising,  and 
preparing  to  print,  his  tragedy ;  and  meanwhile, 
masked  by  the  outward  show  of  levity  and 
merriment,  the  drama  of  real  life  progressed. 
Charlotte,  accompanied  by  her  aunt,  the  Princess 
von  Hardenberg,  came  to  Lausanne ;  and  the 
Princess  dined  at  Coppet,  though  she  left 
Charlotte  at  home.  Charlotte  was  affectionately 
received  by  Madame  de  Nassau,  and  the  secret  of 
her  betrothal  to  Benjamin  was  kept ;  but  further 
developments  were  prevented  by  the  intervention 
of  Benjamin's  father.  It  was  his  wish,  it  appeared, 
that  this  marriage,  so  often  delayed,  should  now 
take  place ;  and  his  wish  would  seem  to  have 
given  Benjamin  resolution  to  act.  It  was 
arranged  that  Charlotte  should  go  on  a  three 
months'  visit  to  M.  Juste  de  Constant  at  Brevans, 
and  that  Benjamin  should  join  her  there.       He 

231 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

did  not  tell  Madame  de  Stael — he  did  not  dare  to 
tell  her — but  he  started. 

"  I  hope,"  he  writes  on  December  6,  "that,  on 
Saturday  evening  or  Sunday  morning,  I  shall  be 
at  B  re  vans.  I  am  within  sight  of  port ;  but  my 
course  is  from  shoal  to  shoal,  and  there  are  still 
two  or  three  reefs  of  rock  to  be  passed.  The 
quiet,  if  quiet  there  is,  will  be  a  new  sensation 
for  me." 

The  next  letter,  dated  from  Brevans  on 
December  15,  shows  him  at  least  in  some  re- 
spects a  man  of  energy. 

"  Here  I  am,  my  dear  aunt,  after  travelling 
through  such  quantities  of  snow  as  I  never  saw 
before.  My  sledge  upset.  I  spent  four  days  on 
the  journey,  with  eight  horses,  and  a  whole  army 
of  men  to  clear  the  track.  At  last  I  have  arrived, 
with  my  purse  much  lightened,  but  very  glad  to 
have  got  clear  of  those  awful  roads.  I  found  my 
prisoner  fairly  well  in  health,  very  loving,  very 
sweet,  and  disposed  to  do  whatever  she  can  to 
please  me.  My  father  said  nothing  to  me  about 
my  intentions,  but  I  shall  execute  them  without 
encountering  any  opposition  from  him. 

*'  So  I  reach  the  goal  at  which  I  have  aimed  so 
long,  with  so  much  constancy,  and  with  such 
strenuous  efforts.  There  is  in  Madame  Dutertre 
a  gentleness,  an  abandon,  a  simplicity  of  heart 
which  fills  my  soul  with  calm.  Yet  it  often 
happens  that  my  memories  assail  me.  My  heart 
feels  that  habits  have  grown  upon  it ;  and  the 
roots  that  have  to  be  torn  up  are  deep,  and  bleed 
in  secret." 

232 


CHAPTER   XX 

Benjamin  marries  Charlotte  secretly — They  go  to  Paris  and  are 
happy — Madame  de  Stael  is  told — Her  wrath — Her  sons 
threaten  Benjamin  with  personal  violence — He  promises  to 
keep  the  secret  of  his  marriage  a  little  longer — He  returns  yet 
again  to  Coppet — The  financial  settlement  with  Madame  de 
Stael. 

The  Constant  marriage  received  the  benediction 
of  a  Protestant  pastor  at  Brevans  in  December 
1 808  ;  that  milestone  on  the  journey,  at  any  rate, 
was  now  safely  passed.  Yet  the  words  quoted  at 
the  end  of  the  last  chapter  expressed  a  just  pre- 
monition. The  marriage,  like  the  engagement, 
was  a  secret  from  everyone  except  Madame  de 
Nassau.  Madame  de  Stael,  knowing  nothing 
about  it,  was  still  seeking  happiness  in  love. 

For  the  moment  Benjamin  and  his  wife  were 
out  of  her  reach  at  Paris,  whither  they  had 
started  early  in  1809.  His  preoccupation  with 
his  heart  did  not  quite  exclude  all  other  interests. 
He  writes  of  the  publication  of  Wallenstein  and 
of  the  attention  which  it  has  attracted.  He 
mentions  that  he  has  received  a  presentation 
copy  of  M.  de  Chateaubriand's  Les  Martyrs,  and 
that  the  sustained  pomposity  of  the  work  dis- 
pleases him.  But  he  is,  at  the  same  time, 
analysing  his  feelings   and   asking   himself  how 

233 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

far  he  is  really  happy.  He  has,  he  tells  Rosalie, 
a  profound  wound  in  his  heart :  "  Though  the 
surface  may  heal,  the  pain  will  probably  remain 
for  ever."     And  he  adds  : — 

"It  seems  to  me  impossible  to  be  happy ;  the 
world  has  misunderstood  me.  Yet  I  must  not 
complain,  for  I  have  misunderstood  myself.  If 
only  I  had  met  someone,  when  I  was  young 
enough,  who  would  have  wished  to  make  me 
happy,  instead  of  regarding  me  simply  as  created 
to  contribute  to  her  happiness !  But  everything 
in  life  happens  too  late.  When  the  heart  is 
capable  of  happiness,  the  happiness  is  not  there  ; 
when  the  happiness  comes,  the  heart  to  feel  it  is 
lacking." 

To  his  aunt,  at  the  same  period,  he  addresses 
appeal  after  appeal  on  no  account  to  disclose  his 
secret.  The  maintenance  of  the  mystery,  he 
writes  at  the  end  of  March,  "  is  more  necessary 
than  ever."  Charlotte,  he  protests,  is  not  urging 
him  to  dissipate  it  prematurely ;  and  he  can  find 
no  words  adequate  to  praise  her  "goodness,"  her 
"generosity,"  her  "heroic  devotion."  Her 
character  is  devoid  of  egotism,  of  vanity,  of  self- 
interest  to  a  "  superhuman "  degree ;  and  she  is 
acting  in  concert  with  him  for  the  best. 

"  I  will  tell  you  the  details,"  he  says,  "  when  I 
have  reached  the  port  towards  which  I  am 
steering.  It  is  straight  sailing  at  present,  but 
there  is  still  a  shoal  to  be  crossed.  We  are 
adopting   the   gentlest,    the   most   generous,  the 

234 


A  Singular  Concession 

most  delicate  course.  I  cannot  guarantee  that 
the  result  will  not,  for  the  moment,  be  painful ; 
but  with  two  easy  consciences  and  two  loving 
hearts  one  finds  a  way  out  of  many  difficulties. 
Perhaps  I  am  urging  you  too  emphatically  to 
keep  the  secret  of  which  you  have  so  long  been 
the  guardian  ;  but  it  is  more  important  than  ever 
that  you  should  do  so,  for  it  is  indispensable  that 
the  delicacy  of  our  conduct  should  not  figure  as 
irony  of  the  bitterest  kind." 

None  the  less,  the  time  was  now  at  hand  when 
Madame  de  Stael  must  be  told,  and  the  husband 
and  wife  came  to  Switzerland  to  tell  her.  It 
appears  that  Charlotte  told  her  in  Benjamin's 
presence,  in  the  early  days  of  May,  with  a  shame- 
faced and  apologetic  air.  She  could  not  help  it, 
she  said  ;  Benjamin  was  "so  good."  The  scene 
which  ensued  is  said  by  some  of  the  biographers 
to  have  been  violent.  Probably  it  was.  Madame 
de  Stael  was  apt  to  be  violent,  and  she  was  not 
likely  to  be  reconciled  to  her  defeat  by  finding 
Charlotte  "insipid."  The  letter  to  Madame  de 
Nassau,  however,  says  nothing  of  any  dispute, 
but  relates  chiefly  to  the  singular  concession 
which  Madame  de  Stael  was  able  to  obtain. 

"I  have  ensured,"  Benjamin  writes,  "the 
maintenance  of  our  friendship,  to  which,  as  you 
know,  I  attach  great  value,  by  promising  to  keep 
my  marriage  secret  a  little  longer,  and  leaving 
her  the  means  of  preparing  the  public  mind  to 
believe  that  the  dissolution  of  our  relationship  is 
due  to  her  own  will  and  initiative.  .  .  .   Madame 

235 


# 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

de  Hardenberg  has  seconded  my  endeavours  with 
all  the  devotion  of  profound  affection,  and  all  the 
delicacy  of  true  sensibility,  offering  and  consent- 
ing to  submit  to  a  difficult  situation  in  order  to 
avoid  causing  pain.  I  am  indebted  to  her  for 
all  the  happiness  which  I  hope  to  enjoy  with  her, 
and  all  the  peace  of  mind  which  I  have  long  been 
desiring." 

That  is  one  version ;  but  Rosalie's  letter  to 
Charles  represents  Charlotte  as  an  intimidated 
rather  than  a  consenting  party  to  the  strange 
transaction. 

"  She  [Madame  de  Stael]  was  so  violent,"  is 
the  cousin's  account,  "and  she  held  out  such 
threats  of  suicide  and  worse,  that  she  extorted 
from  them  both  a  promise  on  their  word  of 
honour  that  they  would  not  make  their  marriage 
known  yet  awhile,  and  that  he  would  remain  at 
Coppet.  All  this  puts  him  in  the  most  annoying 
and  ridiculous  position,  and  I  don't  know  how  it 
will  end.  After  the  frightful  scene  which  I 
described  to  you,  I  wanted  no  more  of  their 
confidences." 

Scene  or  no  scene,  Charlotte's  goodness  of 
heart  was  certainly  leading  her  into  extraordinary 
courses ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  Madame  de 
Nassau  wrote  saying  that  the  situation  reminded 
her  of  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  novels.  Yet  there  was  a 
point  beyond  which  even  Charlotte  would  not  go. 
The  suggestion  that,  while  Benjamin  stayed  at 
Coppet,  she  should  go  to  Germany,  annoyed  her. 
"  For  the  first  time  since   I   have  known  her," 

236 


charlotte's  "Angelic  Character" 

writes  her  husband,  "  I  find  it  difficult  to  persuade 
her  to  follow  my  advice."  It  was  proposed,  as  a 
compromise,  that  she  should  go  to  Berne,  but 
that  course  also  had  to  be  abandoned  in  de- 
ference to  her  objections.  The  final  decision  was 
that  she  should  go  on  a  visit  to  Benjamin's  father. 
•'  I  swear  to  you,"  Benjamin  writes,  at  this  point, 
to  his  aunt,  "that,  if  I  were  offered  the  treasures 
of  Peru,  the  youth  of  Hebe,  and  the  beauty  of 
the  Venus  de  Medicis,  I  should  still  prefer 
Charlotte."  Preferring  Charlotte,  however,  he 
remained  with  Madame  de  Stael,  and  with  her 
came  presently  to  Lyons  to  see  Talma  play. 

"  I  have  followed  her,"  writes  Sismondi  to  the 
Comtesse  d' Albany,  on  June  i6,  "not  so  much 
for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  king  of  the  French 
stage,  as  in  order  not  to  leave  her  in  her  present 
condition  of  ill-health  and  melancholy.  Her  head 
to-day  is  hardly  free  to  enjoy  the  spectacle  which 
she  was  so  ardently  anxious  to  witness." 

Her  depression  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
Benjamin  left  her  at  Lyons,  and  went  to  Dole. 
He  was  evidently  getting  very  tired  of  the  false 
and  embarrassing  position  which  he  occupied. 
His  letters  show  him  reproaching  himself  for 
behaving  like  a  truant  schoolboy.  He  has  the 
more  reason  to  reproach  himself,  because  he  has 
received  the  most  cordial  letters  from  Charlotte's 
relatives  in  Germany,  and  because  every  day 
brings  him  some  fresh  proof  of  Charlotte's 
"angelic  character."     "Our  separation,"  he  says, 

237 


•*» 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"has  been  very  painful.  However,  her  reason 
was  convinced,  and  her  confidence  in  me  has  not 
failed,  and  her  affection,  after  two  years'  trial,  has 
not  diminished.  I  ask  Heaven  no  other  favour 
than  to  grant  her  soon  all  the  happiness  which 
she  deserves." 

At  Dole,  meanwhile,  he  found  that  he  had  not 
yet  escaped  from  Madame  de  Stael.  She  did 
not  follow  him,  indeed,  but  she  sent  her  son 
Auguste  to  fetch  him ;  and  Auguste  evidently 
discharged  his  errand  in  the  spirit  of  a  fire-eater, 
for  we  read  : — 

"  What  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  my  dear  aunt, 
is  strictly  confidential.  I  am  convinced — and  I 
have  evidence — that  if  I  took  my  departure  in 
a  hurry,  Madame  de  Stael's  eldest  son,  who  is 
nineteen,  and  who  worships  his  mother,  seeing 
her  once  more  in  the  condition  into  which  she 
was  thrown  by  my  last  departure  to  Dole,  would 
go  to  the  point  of  challenging  me.  I  have  had 
my  opportunities  of  proving  that  this  sort  of  thing 
does  not  frighten  me.  Consequently  I  can  say 
without  blushing  that  it  would  be  a  terrible  thing 
for  me  to  have  to  draw  my  sword  against  a  boy 
whom  I  Ijave  known  almost  ever  since  he  was 
born.  I  swear  to  you  that,  when  he  came  to 
fetch  me  at  Dole,  he  was  beside  himself  with 
rage,  and  if  he  refrained  from  offensive  ex- 
pressions, that  was  only  because  he  had  promised 
his  mother  to  do  so." 

Nor  was  it  only  Auguste  de  Stael  who 
breathed    threatenings.       His    younger    brother 

238 


Between  Threats  and  Tears 

Albert  was  roused  to  an  equal  indignation. 
There  was  a  real  danger  of  "bloody  scenes"  be- 
tween Benjamin  and  these  young  men.  "  Though 
she  is  incapable  of  wishing  such  a  thing,  she 
abandons  herself  to  such  expressions  of  violence 
that  they  might  very  well  believe  that  they  were 
serving  her  interests  by  proceeding  to  the  last 
extremity."  Meanwhile  he  hopes,  by  persuasive 
gentleness,  to  bring  Madame  de  Stael  to  reason. 
He  and  she  cannot  afford  to  declare  open  war 
against  each  other ;  their  relations  have  been  too 
confidential,  and  they  share  too  many  secrets. 
Therefore  he  is  back  at  Coppet,  seeing  what  can 
be  done.  Surely  it  is  not  excessive  to  devote  a 
fortnight  to  the  winding  up  of  a  liaison  which  has 
lasted  fifteen  years.  When  he  does  go,  he  will 
go  far — not  to  Lausanne  or  D61e,  whither  he 
would  surely  be  pursued,  but  to  Paris,  where 
Madame  de  Stael  cannot  come ;  and  he  expects 
to  be  off,  at  the  latest,  between  the  15  th  and 
20th  of  August. 

Of  course  the  limit  of  the  fortnight  was  ex- 
ceeded. Perhaps  Benjamin  lingered  on,  hoping 
to  facilitate  his  departure  by  wearing  out  his 
welcome.  More  probably  he  was  kept  a  prisoner 
by  the  tears  of  his  mistress  and  the  drawn  swords 
of  her  sons.  At  all  events,  the  elastic  fortnight 
was  extended  to  three  months,  and  might  have 
been  extended  to  an  even  greater  length,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  a  very  outspoken  letter  in  which 
Cousin    Rosalie    repeated   the   gossip    that   was 

239 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

circulating  in  Lausanne.  People  were  whisper- 
ing, said  Rosalie,  that  Madame  de  Stael  had  said 
that  he  was  remaining  at  Coppet  from  interested 
pecuniary  motives. 

He  did,  indubitably,  owe  her  money.  It  is 
easy  to  suggest — it  has,  in  fact,  been  suggested — 
that  she  deliberately  lent  him  money  for  the 
purpose  of  strengthening  her  hold  upon  him ; 
and  the  measure  is  certainly  one  which  has  some- 
times been  adopted  by  desperate  women  seeking 
happiness  in  love.  The  correspondence,  how- 
ever, indicates  a  more  honourable  explanation. 
Benjamin  had  been  directing  Madame  de  Stael's 
investments.  A  balance  was  due  to  her ;  but 
there  could  not  be  a  final  settlement  until  the 
lawyers  had  unravelled  the  accounts.  They  were 
at  work  on  the  business ;  but  it  was  difficult  and 
tedious,  and  very  likely  Madame  de  Stael  did  not 
help  to  expedite  it.  But  as  for  the  slander, 
Benjamin  not  only  repudiated  it  with  vehemence, 
but  absolutely  declined  to  believe  that  it  had 
been  circulated  by  Madame  de  Stael.  In  this 
respect,  at  all  events,  he  had  a  chivalrous  faith 
in  her  which  we  may  share. 

The  mischievous  rumours,  however,  reflected 
not  only  on  Benjamin  but  on  his  wife.  This 
must  not  be  .-^  and  the  only  way  of  putting  a  stop 
to  the  gossip  was  to  pack  and  go.  He  packed 
and  went,  and  actually  succeeded  in  getting  away 
without  a  quarrel,  and  in  the  belief  that  he  was 
entitled  to  say  of  his  relations  with  Madame  de 

240 


Two  Sides  of  the  Picture 

Stael — what  Gibbon  had  said  of  his  relations 
with  her  mother — that  "  love  subsided  in  friend- 
ship and  esteem."  *'  I  have  done,"  he  writes  to 
Madame  de  Nassau,  on  October  19,  "all  that 
was  in  my  power  to  create  the  friendship  that 
was  so  necessary  to  me  after  a  liaison  of  fifteen 
years'  standing,  and  I  shall  not  be  perfectly  happy 
unless  I  succeed." 

Even  now,  however,  the  waters  which  Benjamin 
navigated  were  not  quite  calm.  Painful  letters 
followed  him  from  Coppet — "magic  pictures  "of 
the  misery  of  a  deserted  mistress — and  disturbed 
his  peace  of  mind.  Madame  de  Stael  had  bought 
his  father  with  money,  and  the  old  man  was 
publicly  declaring  at  Lausanne  that  his  sympathies 
were  with  her  rather  than  with  Charlotte.  Doubts, 
which  Madame  de  Nassau  shared,  were  being 
thrown  upon  the  validity  of  his  marriage ;  and 
he  had  to  admit  that  certain  formalities  had  been 
neglected — that  Charlotte,  for  instance,  had  come 
to  the  ceremony  without  a  baptismal  certificate — 
though  he  protested  that  the  omission  did  not 
invalidate  the  union,  but  only  rendered  her  liable 
to  a  fine. 

That  was  the  dark  side  of  the  picture.  The 
bright  side  of  it  was  that  he  was  in  Paris — 
whither  Madame  de  Stael  could  not  pursue  him 
— and  that  Charlotte  was  with  him,  and  that  her 
relatives  and  his  friends  smiled  kindly  on  the 
situation.  Even  the  double  divorce,  it  appeared, 
was  not  unfavourably  regarded.  Divorce,  said 
Q  241 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

the  Catholics,  was  forbidden  to  them  by  the  regu- 
lations of  their  Church,  but  they  saw  no  reason 
why  Protestants  should  not  avail  themselves  of 
the  religious  privileges  of  their  more  liberal  creed. 
And  Rosalie  was  of  the  same  opinion.  "  Three 
husbands,"  she  wrote  to  Charles,  "is  a  large 
number,  but  there  was  someone  in  the  Gospel 
who  had  seven  husbands  and  yet  seems  to  have 
been  an  honest  woman." 

At  Paris,  therefore,  Benjamin  fulfilled  the 
necessary  formalities,  and  made  the  fact  of  his 
marriage  public.  There  is  a  delightful  humour 
in  the  letter  in  which  he  tells  his  aunt  that  he 
has  done  so. 

"  Good-bye,  my  dear  aunt,"  he  writes.  "  There 
have  been  marriages  that  have  been  concluded 
with  greater  simplicity  and  announced  with  greater 
expedition  than  mine.  But  there  has  never 
been  a  husband  whose  wife  has  made  him  more 
happy,  and  every  day  that  passes  increases  my 
attachment  to  her  who  has  restored  me  the  felicity 
that  I  had  lost." 

So  far,  so  good.  It  only  remained  for 
Benjamin  to  wind  up  his  pecuniary  as  well  as 
his  sentimental  relations  with  Madame  de  Stael. 
His  next  visit  to  Coppet,  in  March  i8io,  had 
this  and  no  other  object,  and  he  found  Madame 
de  Stael  still  sulking  and  still  reluctant  to  facilitate 
business.  "  It  is  a  matter  of  importance  to  me," 
he  writes,  "  to  compel  Madame  de  Stael  to  accept 
the  money  which  I  owe  her,  and  I  can  only  do 

242 


A  Financial  Settlement 

this  by  going  into  every  account  in  minutest 
detail.  Whenever  I  have  asked  her  to  tell  me 
the  amount  of  my  indebtedness  to  her,  she  has 
always  replied  that  she  knew  nothing  about  it ; 
and  whether  her  motive  be  friendship  or  revenge 
or  a  combination  of  the  two  sentiments,  nothing 
would  please  her  better  than  that  I  should  go 
away  leaving  her  my  creditor." 

Somehow  or  other,  however,  a  settlement  was 
arrived  at.  "  It  is  a  proof,"  says  Benjamin,  "that 
Heaven  rewards  good  intentions.  For  it  is  only 
my  intentions  that  have  always  been  good ;  most 
of  my  actions  have  been  awkward  and  clumsy." 
It  was  a  true  saying  in  a  general  way,  but  hardly 
true  in  this  particular  instance,  if  we  may  judge 
from  Rosalie's  account  of  his  conduct.  "He 
took  her  eldest  son,"  she  writes,  "a  man  of 
twenty,  and  of  a  very  reasonable  disposition,  as 
arbitrator  and  judge.  Some  papers  were  missing 
and  had  to  be  sent  for  from  Paris.  During  the 
interval  he  came  to  see  us ;  and  though  his 
behaviour  had  made  us  all  very  uneasy,  and  I 
had  told  him  so  without  mincing  my  words,  we 
were  good  friends  again,  and  glad  to  see  each 
other."  "Her  children,"  says  a  later  letter  by 
Charles  de  Constant,  "speak  very  highly  of 
Benjamin's  conduct." 


243 


CHAPTER  XXI 

Mysticism  at  Coppet — Madame  de  Stael  writes  De  VAllemagne 
and  goes  to  France — Her  manuscript  is  confiscated,  and  she 
is  expelled — She  returns  to  Coppet,  and  endures  petty  per- 
secutions. 

The  troubles  of  the  heart  did  not,  in  the  case 
of  Madame  de  Stael,  interfere  with  the  march 
of  intellect ;  they  even  coincided  with  a  kind  of 
religious  awakening. 

All  through  the  months  in  which  her  tears 
and  the  threats  of  her  sons  kept  Benjamin 
Constant  separated  from  his  wife,  Coppet  was 
full  of  people  among  whom  a  spirit  of  Revivalism 
was  alive.  The  pedant  Schlegel  was  inclining 
to  the  mystic  Quietism  of  Madame  Guyon.  His 
last  words  to  Benjamin,  when  the  lover  did  at 
last  manage  to  emancipate  himself  from  the 
thraldom  of  his  mistress,  were  an  exhortation  to 
him  to  advance  the  cause  of  religion  in  France 
— a  task  which  Benjamin  only  declined  because 
he  felt  that  the  case  of  France  was  hopeless. 
Bonstetten,  whose  tendencies  were  purely 
Voltairean,  noted  the  change  that  had  come 
over  the  atmosphere  in  one  of  his  letters  to 
Frederika  Brun.  "  Nothing,"  he  informed  that 
lady,  "is  more  altered  than  Coppet.  You  will 
see  that  everybody  is  becoming  Catholic,  Martin- 

244 


Mysticism  at  Coppet 

istic,*  mystic,  all  through  Schlegel,  and  everything 
is  now  German.  .  .  .  Madame  Krudner  has  also 
paid  a  flying  visit,  and  spoke  of  nothing  but 
Heaven  and  Hell." 

Who  was  in  earnest  in  these  matters,  and  how 
far  the  earnestness  went,  is  a  little  difficult  to  say. 
We  have  already,  however,  seen  Benjamin 
Constant  complaining  in  his  Diary  that  the 
fervour  of  the  Chevalier  de  Langallerie  had 
failed  to  persuade  Madame  de  Stael  to  accept 
the  consolations  of  religion  as  a  substitute  for  a 
liaison  with  him ;  and  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely 
that  her  mysticism  was  largely  due  to  her  known 
habit  of  dosing  herself  with  opium,  and  that  the 
true  picture  of  her  mental  attitude  is  that  given 
in  the  letter  which  Henri  Meister's  nephew,  Hess, 
wrote  to  his  uncle  on  the  subject. 

"Ah,  how  I  wish,"  he  wrote,  "that  you  could 
induce  a  person  who  is  dear  to  you,  Madame  de 
Stael,  to  share  the  view  you  have  expressed  '  On 
Serenity  in  Old  Age.'  She  needs  this  badly. 
Never  have  I  see  anyone  look  forward  with  such 
dread  as  she  does  to  the  hour  when  she  must 
give  up  the  idea  of  making  sensations  and  shining 
in  the  world ;  and  as  she  always  goes  to  extremes 
in  whatever  she  does,  she  will  only  abandon  this 
infatuation  for  the  illusory  triumphs  of  life  by 
plunging  into  mysticism.  She  has  already  made 
a  beginning,  and  M.  Schlegel  is  working  as  hard 
as  he  can  to  complete  the  process.     During  the 

^  The  Martinists  were  a  theurgic  sect  founded  by  Martinez  Pas- 
qualis  (1715-1779)-     Little  is  known  as  to  their  doctrines. 

245 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

winter  she  saw  a  great  deal  of  a  number  of 
people  whose  religious  ideas  are  of  a  very 
extravagant  complexion.  Madame  de  Stael 
fluctuates  between  these  extravagant  ideas  and 
a  need  for  society,  distraction,  and  frivolous 
pleasures.  She  cannot  conceive  of  the  existence 
of  a  mean  between  the  two  extremes." 

The  Philistine  youth  writes  unkindly,  though 
not,  perhaps,  unjustly;  but  it  should  be  added 
that  the  distractions  of  religion  and  society  did 
not,  any  more  than  the  pains  of  unrequited  love, 
impede  the  progress  of  literary  work.  In  the 
intervals  of  mystic  exaltation  and  ecstasy,  Madame 
de  Stael  wrote  what  is  generally  esteemed  her  best 
book,  De  V Allemagne.  Almost  every  evening 
she  gathered  her  fellow-mystics  around  her — 
they  were  nearly  all  mystics  who  had  been  more 
than  once  divorced — ^and  read  them  what  she  had 
written  during  the  day.  Adam  Oelenschlager  ^  and 
Zacharias  Werner,  the  German  poets,  Mathieu  de 
Montmorency,  M.  de  Sabran,  as  well  as  Schlegel, 
Sismondi,  and  the  unfaithful  Benjamin  Constant, 
were  included  in  the  audience  at  her  feet. 

The  work  being  finished,  and  the  relations 
with  Benjamin  being  simultaneously  placed  on 
their  new  footing,  Madame  de  Stael  was  again 
bitten  by  that  desire  to  travel,  which,  like  the 
gadfly,  was  always  driving  her  from  one  habita- 
tion to  another,  and  never  suffering  her  to  find 

^  He  enriched  German  literature  with  subjects  derived  from  the 
heroic  Scandinavian  period. 

246 


The  Coppet  Life  Reproduced 

rest  in  any.  She  had  some  idea  of  visiting 
America,  where  much  of  her  money  was  invested, 
with  the  idea  of  making  a  further  voyage  thence 
to  England;  and  she  even  procured  passports 
for  that  purpose.  Paris,  however,  was,  for  the 
time  being,  the  more  powerful  magnet.  She 
wanted  at  least  to  approach  the  capital  in  order 
to  superintend  the  publication  of  her  book ;  and 
she  went  to  the  Chateau  of  Chaumont-sur- Loire, 
whence  she  moved,  on  the  return  of  the  proprietor, 
to  the  Chateau  de  Fosse.  Mathieu  de  Mont- 
morency, the  two  Barantes,  Schlegel,  and 
Madame  Rdcamier  were  with  her  there.  Other 
visitors  were  from  time  to  time  received.  The 
Coppet  life — work  in  the  morning  and  entertain- 
ments in  the  evening — was,  so  far  as  might  be, 
reproduced.  The  scene  is  depicted  in  Dix 
Annies  d'Exil. 

"  Hardly  had  we  arrived  when  an  Italian 
musician,  who  was  with  me  as  my  daughter's 
teacher,  began  to  play  the  guitar.  My  daughter 
accompanied  on  the  harp  the  sweet  voice  of  my 
beautiful  friend,  Madame  Rdcamier,  and  the 
peasants  gathered  under  our  windows,  astonished 
to  see  this  colony  of  troubadours  which  had  come 
to  give  life  to  the  solitude  of  their  master.  .  .  . 
We  often  used  to  sing  a  charming  air  composed 
by  the  Queen  of  Holland,  with  the  refrain : 
'  Fais  ce  que  dois,  advienne  que  pourra.'  After 
dinner  the  idea  occurred  to  us  to  sit  round  a 
green  table,  and  play  a  paper  game  instead  of 
talking.       We    could     not     bear     the     thought 

247 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

of  breaking  through  our  practice  even  when 
strangers  arrived ;  and  our  petit  poste,  as  we 
called  our  pastime,  was  always  continued.  Our 
life  passed  in  this  fashion,  and  if  I  may  judge 
by  my  own  case,  the  time  hung  Heavily  on  no  one. 
"  The  opera  of  Cinderella  was  then  making 
a  good  deal  of  stir  in  Paris,  and  I  wanted  to  go 
and  see  it  performed  in  a  bad  provincial  theatre 
at  Blois.  As  I  left  the  theatre  on  foot,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  town  followed  me  in  their 
curiosity,  desiring  to  become  acquainted  with 
me  as  an  exile  rather  than  in  any  other  char- 
acter. This  kind  of  success,  which  I  owed  to 
my  misfortunes  rather  than  my  talents,  annoyed 
the  Minister  of  Police,  who  wrote,  some  time 
afterwards,  to  the  Prefect  of  Loir-et-Cher,  that 
I  had  a  Court  about  me." 

A  great  blow,  however,  was  impending.  The 
last  proofs  of  De  V Allemagne  were  corrected  on 
September  23,  18 10.  The  work  had  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  Censor,  and  alterations  had  been 
introduced  in  deference  to  his  views  ;  but  Madame 
de  Stael,  in  believing  her  difficulties  to  be  over- 
come, had  reckoned  without  the  police.  The 
news  was  conveyed  to  her  that  the  Minister  of 
Police  had  caused  the  whole  edition  to  be  seized 
and  destroyed,  and  that  she  would  be  required  to 
surrender  the  manuscript  and  quit  her  residence 
within  four-and-twenty  hours.  Fortunately,  she 
had  a  copy  of  the  manuscript,  and  gave  up  that, 
retaining  the  original,  with  the  connivance  of  the 
Prefect  charged  with  the  execution  of  the  order, 

248 


The  Confiscation  of  De  P Allemagne 

who  was  a  personal  friend.  She  then  wrote  to 
Rovigo,  asking  leave  to  delay  her  departure  for  a 
few  days.  He  accorded  her  a  week,  but  no 
longer,  to  make  her  arrangements. 

The  objection  to  the  book  is  said  to  have  been 
that  the  author  wrote  of  Germany  without  praising 
either  the  French  Emperor  or  France.  **  Is  it  to 
be  supposed,"  Rovigo  is  reported  to  have  said  in 
conversation,  "  that  we  have  made  war  in  Germany 
for  eighteen  years  in  order  that  a  person  with  a 
well-known  name  like  hers  might  write  a  book 
about  Germany  without  mentioning  us?  The 
author  ought  to  have  been  sent  to  Vincennes." 
In  his  letter,  however,  he  expressly  denied  that 
the  omission  of  the  Emperor's  praises  was  the 
determining  cause  of  his  action.  "  Your  banish- 
ment," he  wrote,  "  is  a  natural  consequence  of  the 
course  of  conduct  which  you  have  consistently 
pursued  for  several  years.  .  .  .  We  are  not  yet 
reduced  to  looking  for  examples  of  behaviour 
among  the  peoples  which  you  admire.  Your  last 
work  is  not  French  in  its  character ;  it  was  I  who 
suppressed  it.  I  regret  the  loss  that  your 
publisher  will  suffer,  but  it  was  impossible  for  me 
to  allow  the  publication."     And  he  concluded  : — 

*'  I  have  reasons,  Madame,  for  indicating  the 
ports  of  Lorient,  La  Rochelle,  Bordeaux,  and 
Rochefort  as  the  only  ones  at  which  you  will  be 
permitted  to  embark.  I  beg  you  to  inform  me 
which  of  them  you  have  selected." 

The  point  of  this  postscript  was  that  it  forbade 
249 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

departure  from  any  of  the  Channel  ports.  It  was 
suspected  that  Madame  de  Stael  wanted  to  go  to 
England,  and  this  obstacle  was  thrown  in  her  way. 
Her  sons  sought  an  interview  with  Napoleon  on 
the  subject  at  Fontainebleau,  but  were  met  with 
the  threat  of  arrest.  She  decided,  therefore,  with 
reluctance  to  retire  to  Coppet,  where  she  arrived 
early  in  October,  reflecting  upon  the  degradation 
of  a  country  in  which  advancement  and  even  re- 
spite from  persecution  were  only  to  be  purchased  by 
serving  "  the  interests  of  the  man  who  presumes  to 
make  his  own  personality  the  one  object  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  which  all  human  endeavour  must  tend." 
Nor  did  persecution  cease  when  she  reached 
her  home.  The  Prefect  of  Geneva  received 
orders  to  inform  her  sons  that  they  would  not  be 
allowed  to  return  to  France  without  a  fresh  per- 
mit from  the  police ;  and  he  was  also  instructed 
to  demand  that  the  proof  sheets  of  De 
r Allemagne  should  be  handed  over  to  him. 
When,  on  Madame  de  Stael's  refusal  to  comply 
with  his  orders,  he  did  not  insist,  he  was  removed 
from  his  office,  and  a  M.  Capelle  was  appointed  in 
his  place.  The  new-comer  called  upon  her,  and 
suggested  that  the  eulogy  of  the  Emperor  would 
be  a  fitting  subject  for  a  pen  "worthy  of  the 
sort  of  enthusiasm  I  had  displayed  in  Corinne." 
In  particular  he  thought  she  would  be  well-advised 
to  write  an  Ode  on  the  birth  of  the  King  of  Rome. 
"  I  told  him  with  a  laugh,"  Madame  de  Stael  says, 
•'  that  I  had  no  ideas  on  the  subject,  and  that  all 

250 


Petty  Persecutions 

that  I  could  say  was  that  I  hoped  he  would  have 
a  good  foster-nurse."  When  she  went  to  Aix-les- 
Bains,  where  Albert  de  Stael  had  been  ordered  to 
take  the  waters,  he  sent  gendarmes  after  her  to 
order  her  to  return,  and  gave  instructions  that 
horses  were  to  be  refused  to  her  if  she  tried  to 
travel  in  any  other  direction.  Schlegel  was 
ordered  to  leave  her ;  and  even  the  social  gaieties 
of  Coppet  were  interrupted. 

"  Madame  de  Stael,"  said  the  Prefect,  "  is  lead- 
ing an  agreeable  life  at  home.  Her  friends,  and 
foreigners,  come  to  see  her  at  Coppet.  The 
Emperor  will  not  allow  that."  She  gave  some 
further  theatrical  performances,  producing  two 
comedies  of  her  own  composition,  entitled  Le 
Mannequin  and  Le  Capitaine  Kernadec ;  but 
most  of  her  old  acquaintances  were  afraid  to 
frequent  her,  and  she  could  write  of  herself  to 
Henri  Meister  as  "  living  here  in  a  kind  of  prison, 
at  least  on  the  side  of  France,  which  makes  life 
very  painful."  Her  friends  the  G^randos  passed 
through  the  neighbourhood  without  venturing  to 
visit  her ;  and  we  get  an  intimate  glimpse  of  the 
condition  of  things  in  letters  exchanged  between 
Rosalie  de  Constant  and  her  brother  Charles,  who 
had  now  come  to  live  at  Geneva,  and  whom 
Madame  de  Stael  invited  to  dinner. 

"The  Stael  dinner,"  writes  Charles,  "was  very 
fine,  but  I  shall  not  go  there  again.  It  was  very 
tiring,  and  the  display  was  enough  to  make  one 
sick."     To  which  Rosalie  replied  :  "  All  personal 

251 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

considerations  apart,  I  am  glad  you  are  not  main- 
taining your  relations  with  the  famous  lady ;  such 
relations  are  very  dangerous.  I  am  sure  she  was 
the  cause  of  the  dismissal  of  the  Prefect,  and  I  am 
sure  a  note  is  taken  of  all  those  who  frequent  her. 
It  is  her  pride  to  compromise  her  friends.  .  .  . 
Every  event  connected  with  her  makes  a  noise, 
and,  from  all  I  hear,  the  system  of  espionage  is 
complete." 

That  was  what  the  world  saw  and  noted,  and 
that  is  what  Madame  de  Stael  relates.  A  letter, 
however,  written  to  Henri  Meister  by  Madame 
Rilliet-Huber  of  Geneva,  on  November  13, 
18 10,  indicates  that  her  troubles  with  the  police 
did  not  constitute  the  whole  of  life  for  her,  and 
fittingly  introduces  a  fresh  phase  of  the  subject. 
She  is,  we  there  read,  "as  lively  and  brilliant  as 
ever  "  ;  and  the  writer  continues  : — 

*'  Madame  de  Stael  has  taken  an  apartment  at 
Geneva,  where  she  will  take  up  her  residence  on 
the  26th.  She  will  shorten  her  winter  by  a  stay 
of  several  weeks  at  Lausanne,  where  she  is  to 
meet  Benjamin  and  his  wife.  This  expression 
and  his  wife  proves  to  you  that  Madame  de 
Stael's  trouble  is  no  longer  in  that  direction,  for 
which  we  must  be  grateful  to  Heaven. 

*'  It  appears  (this  strictly  in  confidence)  that 
Benjamin  repents  of  his  marriage,  the  fruit  of 
annoyance  and  a  transitory  passion,  and  that,  if 
he  could  return  to  the  condition  of  things  of  three 
or  four  years  ago — much  as  he  complained  of  it 
then — he  would  do  so  with  unspeakable  delight. 

252 


A  New  Lover 

Madame  de  Stael  is  too  good,  and  no  longer  loves 
him  enough  for  his  regrets  to  avenge  her.  Still, 
she  is  not  heart-broken  about  it. 

"  She  has  no  settled  plans  for  the  future,  but  she 
is  bored  here." 

There  was  soon,  however,  to  be  relief  from 
boredom ;  and,  in  the  act  of  the  drama  that  is  to 
follow,  we  shall  find  Madame  de  Stael  playing  the 
double  part  that,  in  the  previous  act,  had  been 
played  by  Benjamin  Constant.  A  new  lover  had 
come  into  her  life.  A  second  marriage  —  a 
secret  marriage  —  was,  or  was  soon  to  be,  in 
contemplation. 


253 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Madame  de  Stael  makes  the  acquaintaince  of  Rocca  and  secretly 
marries  him — Benjamin  and  his  wife  arrive  at  Lausanne — 
Rocca  challenges  Benjamin,  but  the  duel  is  avoided — The 
Constants  start  for  Germany — Extracts  from  Benjamin's 
Journal  and  letters. 

"  I  ALWAYS  loved  my  lovers  more  than  they  loved 
me  in  return,"  is  one  of  Madame  de  Stael's  re- 
ported sayings ;  and  it  remains  a  fairly  true  saying 
when  certain  necessary  qualifications  have  been 
made. 

She  is  hardly  worthy  to  be  called,  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  \iOxdiS,  grande  amoureuse.  Her  dual 
nature  restrained  her  from  esteeming  the  world 
well  lost  for  love  for  many  consecutive  hours. 
So  far  as  we  have  followed  her  career,  we  have 
seen  her  looking  upon  love  far  more  as  a  drawing- 
room  accomplishment  than  as  an  affection  of  the 
heart.  Unless  men  sighed  at  her  feet,  she  felt 
not  so  much  unhappy  as  uneasy ;  and  when  they 
did  sigh,  her  first  impulse  was  to  advertise  the 
conquest.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  public 
and  notorious  than  the  attachment  to  Benjamin 
Constant,  unless  it  were  the  attachment  to  M.  de 
Narbonne.  Consequently,  in  engaging  her  heart 
she  also  compromised  her  vanity,  and,  rather  for 
her  vanity's  than  for  her  heart's  sake,  clung  to 

254 


Albert  de  Rocca 

retreating  lovers  with  desperate  and  undignified 
tenacity,  yet  never  mourned  for  them  after  she 
had  lost  them.  For  love  was  more  to  her  than 
any  particular  lover ;  and  the  post  of  lover  was 
merely  the  most  important  of  the  offices  in  her 
gift,  and  one  which  it  was  her  practice  to  fill  as 
soon  as  ever  it  became  vacant.  We  have  seen 
how  M.  de  Narbonne's  coldness  was  Benjamin 
Constant's  opportunity.  Benjamin  Constant's 
coldness  was  now,  in  turn,  to  prove  the  oppor- 
tunity of  Albert-Michel-Jean  de  Rocca. 

Rocca  was  a  soldier  who  had  served  both  in 
Spain  and  against  the  British  expedition  to  the 
Isle  of  Walcheren.  At  a  later  date  he  wrote 
short  books  on  both  campaigns.  They  have 
considerable  merit ;  and  one  of  them  has  been 
reprinted  in  a  popular  Library  of  Adventures. 
He  had  been  wounded  and  left  for  dead  upon 
the  field  of  battle,  but  saved  by  a  Spanish  maiden, 
who  declared  that  he  was  too  handsome  to  be 
allowed  to  die.  Returning  to  Geneva  to  re- 
cuperate, he  made  love  to  Madame  de  Stael  in 
his  dashing  military  manner.  It  is  even  said 
that  he  galloped  his  horse  down  a  long  flight 
of  stone  steps  in  the  Old  Town  in  his  haste  to 
ride  beneath  her  window,  though  the  people  who 
believe  that  story  are  not  the  people  who  have 
seen  the  steps  in  question.  It  was  pointed  out 
to  him  that  his  mistress  was  old  enough  to  be 
his  mother, — she  was,  in  fact,  forty-five,  and  he 
was  only  twenty-three, — but  he  replied  that  the 

255 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

mention  of  the  word  "  mother  "  only  gave  him  an 
additional  motive  for  loving  her.  "  I  will  love 
her,"  he  said,  "so  dearly  that  she  will  end  by 
marrying  me ; "  while  the  report  of  Baron  de 
Voght  was :  "He  is  fascinated  by  his  relations 
with  Madame  de  Stael,  and  the  tears  of  his  father 
cannot  induce  him  to  abandon  them." 

Bonstetten,  it  is  true,  thought  him  merely  a 
rowdy,  and  Benjamin  Constant  thought  him 
merely  a  fire-eater ;  but  no  doubt  he  boasted  his 
two  soul  sides  like  the  rest  of  us.  At  any  rate, 
he  loved  passionately,  and  did  not  love  in  vain, 
though  he  had  to  submit  to  an  ignominious 
condition.  The  marriage,  Madame  de  Stael 
stipulated,  must  be  kept  a  secret  from  the  world ; 
she  must  not  be  required  to  change  her  name ; 
her  husband  must  be  presented  as  her  paramour, 
even  when  she  bore  him  children.  Rocca  was 
sufficiently  in  love  to  accept  the  situation ;  and 
the  results  of  her  deception  were  in  every  way 
satisfactory  to  Madame  de  Stael.  The  world 
had  never  expected  her  to  be  moral,  and  could 
not  say  that  she  was  making  herself  ridiculous. 
The  very  society  which  refused  to  accept  Charlotte 
because  of  her  double  divorce  admitted  the  sup- 
posed mistress  of  Albert  de  Rocca  to  its  most 
exclusive  circles. 

The  marriage,  however,  had  not  yet  been  con- 
cluded— and  one  cannot  even  say  for  certain  how 
far  the  intimacy  had  gone — when,  in  the  winter 
of  1 8 lo-i 8 1 1,  Benjamin  Constant  and  Charlotte 

256 


Benjamin  and  Charlotte  at  Lausanne 

passed  through  Switzerland  on  their  way  to 
Germany,  where  they  were  to  visit  the  family  of 
the  latter.  All  that  we  know  for  certain  is  that, 
though  Benjamin's  letters  at  this  period  are  still 
full  of  expressions  of  affection  for  Charlotte,  he 
had  by  no  means  forgotten  Madame  de  Stael, 
and  that  he  found  Rocca  in  high  favour  with 
her,  and  very  ill-disposed  towards  him.  His 
own  account  of  the  matter  is  contained  in  the  so- 
called  "  Carnet  de  Benjamin  Constant,"  quoted 
by  Sainte-Beuve  in  his  Causeries  du  Lundi, 
"My  head,"  he  writes,  "is  in  a  whirl  between 
Charlotte  and  Madame  de  Stael.  I  gamble  and 
lose  twenty  thousand  francs  in  a  day."  And  he 
proceeds  in  short  disjointed  sentences  : — 

"  Arrival  at  Geneva. — My  father  seizes  the 
first  pretext  for  quarrelling  with  me. —  I  go  to 
Lausanne. — Lausanne's  curiosity  about  Charlotte. 
A  combination  of  ill-will  for  me,  which  causes  us 
to  be  badly  received,  with  jealousy  of  Madame 
de  Stael,  whom  they  wish  to  annoy  by  receiving 
us  well. — Correspondence  with  my  father. — He 
invents  a  thousand  grievances  against  me,  re- 
pudiates his  own  signature,  and  goes  so  far  as 
to  accuse  me  of  forgery. — Excursions  to  Geneva 
without  Charlotte  (February  1811). — Madame  de 
Stael  takes  me  back  as  far  as  Coppet — the  last 
time  in  my  life  that  I  saw  Coppet. — Rows  with 
my  father,  with  Charlotte,  and  with  Madame  de 
Stael. — A  miserable  life. — Charlotte  is  not  at  all 
a  success  at  Lausanne. — Dinner  without  Charlotte 
with  Madame  de  Stael,  at  d'Arlens'. — Scenes. — 
R  257 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Last  journey  to  Geneva  about  my  business  with 
my  father ;  we  settle  everything. — He  starts  for 
D6le,  and,  en  routCy  writes  me  threatening  letters, 
in  which  he  withdraws  all  the  results  of  the 
intervention  of  M.  de  Louys. — Agitations  with 
Madame  de  Stael. — She  proposes  an  appoint- 
ment at  Rolle. — I  dare  not  accept  it  for  fear  of 
Charlotte. — Madame  de  Stael  comes  to  Lausanne  : 
last  interview  before  my  departure. — Correspond- 
ence after  her  return  to  Coppet. — Rocca  repeats  his 
proposal  to  fight  a  duel. — My  reply. — Departure 
for  Germany  (May  15,  181 1). — Quite  a  different 
atmosphere. — No  more  rows. — Charlotte  pleased  ; 
no  more  hostile  public  opinion. — I  resume  my 
work.     I  gamble  and  lose  my  money  at  roulette." 


This  is  sketchy  in  manner,  and  was  written  too 
long  after  the  event  to  be  depended  upon  for 
accuracy  in  detail.  The  details  which  can  be 
added  from  the  correspondence  have  no  special 
bearing  upon  this  narrative,  as  they  chiefly  relate 
to  his  quarrel  with  his  father  about  money  matters. 
Happily  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  Ben- 
jamin behaved  otherwise  than  well.  He  had  to  do 
with  a  stupid  man  of  choleric  disposition,  much 
under  the  influence  of  a  second  wife  of  humble 
birth  and  mischief-making  tendencies ;  but  he 
made  the  best  of  a  difficult  situation.  As  regards 
Rocca's  challenge,  we  find  a  few  further  particulars 
in  a  letter  from  Benjamin's  pen  printed  (in  German) 
in  Karl  Fulda's  Chamisson  and  his  Times. 

On  April  18,  181 1,  it  appears,  Benjamin  was 
258 


Rocca  challenges  Benjamin 

in  Geneva  on  business  with  a  lawyer.  Having 
finished  his  business,  he  called  on  Madame  de 
Stael,  and  remained  to  dinner.  As  he  was  leaving 
the  house,  M.  Rocca  met  him,  bluntly  stated  that 
he  was  displeased  at  the  attentions  which  he 
observed  him  to  be  paying  to  Madame  de  Stael, 
and  proposed  that  they  should  fight.  The  tone 
of  the  proposal  seemed  to  Benjamin  to  leave  no 
room  for  explanations.  He  could  not  even  point 
out,  he  says,  that  his  alleged  "attentions"  had 
consisted  in  calling  upon  Madame  de  Stael  twice 
in  the  course  of  three  months,  or  that  his  affection 
for  his  wife  and  the  plans  that  he  was  making  for 
a  long  and  distant  journey  were  sufficient  evidence 
that  he  had  no  desire  to  poach  upon  Rocca's  pre- 
serves ;  and  it  was  arranged  that  the  hostile  meet- 
ing should  take  place  on  the  Bridge  over  the 
Arve  at  nine  o'clock  on  the  following  morning. 
Writing,  therefore,  in  uncertainty  as  to  the  issue 
of  an  encounter  which  promises  to  be  desperate, 
he  distributes  final  messages  : — 

"  I  beg  my  wife's  forgiveness  for  all  the  trouble 
which  I  have  caused  her,  and  for  this  last  cata- 
strophe, which  will  be  a  cause  of  still  greater 
bitterness  to  her.  I  beg  her  on  no  account  to 
believe  that  I  did  anything  to  provoke  it.  My 
true,  deep,  and  unchangeable  love  for  her  was  an 
obstacle  which  prevented  any  act  of  gallantry  on 
my  part  towards  any  other  woman.  I  love  no  one 
as  I  love  her.  She  has  been  an  angel  to  me,  and  my 
last  sentiments  are  those  of  Dante  for  his  beloved. 

259 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

*'  I  forgive  Madame  de  Stael  for  the  fatality  of 
which  she  will  have  been  the  cause,  and  I  do  not 
hold  her  responsible  for  the  savagery  of  a  young 
barbarian.  I  beg  her  similarly  to  pardon  me  if  I 
have,  on  certain  occasions,  caused  her  grief.  I 
do  not  inquire  whether  I  was  right  or  wrong  ; 
that  I  did  grieve  her  is  a  sufficient  cause  for  my 
repentance. 

"  I  bequeath  all  my  property  without  exception 
to  my  wife.  ..." 

The  details  which  follow  are  of  no  particular 
importance ;  and  the  chief  interest  of  the  letter 
is  as  a  revelation  of  Benjamin  Constant's  Hat 
dame.  He  not  only  wanted  to  love  Charlotte ; 
he  loved  her.  Her  love  (he  still  thought)  was  a 
haven  of  quiet,  safely  reached  at  last  after  a 
journey  across  stormy  seas.  The  ties  which  now 
united  him  to  Madame  de  Stael  were  (he  believed) 
only  of  gratitude  and  obligation.  He  had  yet  to 
learn  that  even  of  calm  there  may  come  satiety, 
and  that  some  memories  are  apt  to  reassert 
themselves,  even  when  a  man  thinks  that  he  has 
lived  them  down.  His  love  for  the  one  woman, 
and  his  indifference  towards  the  other,  made  it 
easier  than  he  had  at  first  thought  to  avoid  the 
unnecessary  duel.  He  had  given  his  proofs,  and 
could  go  further  than  some  men  without  having 
to  fear  the  charge  of  cowardice.  Consequently 
he  could  refuse  to  fight  Rocca  for  much  the  same 
reasons  for  which  he  had  refused  to  fight  Auguste 
de  Stael.     At  all  events,  he  did  refuse,  and,  as  we 

260 


The  Constants  start  for  Germany 

have  seen,  took  his  departure  from  Switzerland 
for  Germany  on  May  15,  181 1,  meaning  first  to 
visit  his  wife's  relatives,  and  then  to  settle  at 
Gottingen,  where  the  resources  of  a  large  library 
would  be  available  for  his  great  work  on  the 
History  of  Religions. 

His  letters  home  during  the  period  are  those  of 
a  healthily  happy  man.  His  father  is  libelling 
him  and  threatening  him  with  lawsuits,  but  he 
acknowledges  no  other  trouble.  Wherever  he 
arrives,  he  is  well  received ;  and  he  chats  lightly 
to  Rosalie  of  the  minor  incidents  of  travel.  At 
Berne  he  writes  : — 

"  My  wife  was  delighted  with  the  beauty  of 
the  neighbourhood,  and  I  think,  if  I  had  wished 
it,  she  would  have  been  willing  to  settle  there 
with  me.  She  has  the  excellent  quality  of  always 
feeling  with  incredible  intensity  the  advantages  of 
the  present  hour — which  is  a  great  source  of 
happiness  for  oneself  and  others." 

At  Soleure : — 

*'  They  took  us  to  the  Hermitage,  which  is  a 
charming  English  garden.  Formerly  there  was  a 
Hermit  there  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word. 
Nowadays,  the  Hermit  is  a  tailor  who  has  been 
dressed  up  in  a  monkish  garment,  and  taught  to 
fold  his  arms  across  his  breast  and  bend  his  head, 
and  who,  for  the  rest,  makes  clothes,  sells  beer, 
and  receives  four  pounds  of  bread,  three  pounds 
of  meat,  and  ten  batzs  a  week  for  carrying  on  the 
trade.  I  think  this  gives  a  fairly  accurate  im- 
pression of  religion  at  the  present  time." 

261 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

At  Basle : — 

"  On  arriving  here  we  met  the  comedians  whom 
we  had  seen  at  Berne,  and  sat  down  to  table 
d'hote  with  them.  I  began  a  conversation  with 
one  of  them  ;  but  I  was  so  unfortunate  as  to 
state  that  he  had  played  a  secondary  part  in  the 
piece  in  which  I  had  seen  him,  whereas  he  had 
played  the  principal  part,  and  I  have  never  since 
succeeded  in  re-starting  the  conversation." 

At  Cassel : — 

"  In  a  general  way,  my  position  here  is  rather 
curious.  To  give  you  some  idea  of  it,  I  content 
myself,  without  entering  into  details,  with  telling 
you  that  my  wife's  family  is  entirely  composed  of 
ministers,  superior  officers,  and  favourites  of  the 
Court  of  Westphalia,  and  that  it  is  in  the  midst  of 
them  that  I  pass  my  life.  I  am  the  only  one  of 
the  company  who  has  not  a  coat  with  embroidery 
on  every  seam,  three  or  four  straps  on  the 
shoulders,  and  three  or  four  orders  on  the  breast." 

Save  for  the  business  details,  all  the  letters  are 
more  or  less  in  that  tone  of  light  and  cheerful 
persiflage.  The  name  of  Madame  de  Stael  is  not 
so  much  as  mentioned ;  and  it  is  not  until  we 
turn  to  the  Journal  Intime  that  we  discover  the 
continuity  of  the  inner  life.  But  then  we  do  see 
that  a  liaison  of  fifteen  years'  duration  was  not  to 
be  cancelled  by  strokes  of  the  pen  or  farewell 
speeches,  but  was  bound  to  live  in  its  consequences 
and  in  its  memories.  Those  memories  were 
always  waiting  for  Benjamin — lurking  to  spring 

262 


At  the  Gaming-Table 

upon  him  in  his  weak  moments,  and  he  sought 
escape  from  them  at  the  gaming-table  no  less 
than  at  the  desk.  Eliminating  the  inessential,  we 
may  let  the  Diary  speak. 

"  We  stay  at  Baden.  Lured  on  by  a  gain  of 
three  louis,  I  play  and  lose  like  a  fool." 

"We  start  for  Heidelberg,  where  I  spend  the 
day  with  the  young  de  Loys.  Arriving  at 
Frankfort,  we  are  overtaken  by  storms  and  floods. 
I  find  a  heap  of  letters,  and  no  bad  news  in  any 
of  them — an  amazing  thing." 

"  We  stay  at  Frankfort.  They  plague  me  to 
death  with  the  accursed  title  of  Baron.  I  do  not 
cease  to  gamble,  and  I  do  not  cease  to  lose.  Let 
us  be  off." 

*'  Arrive  at  Schwalbach,  which  I  find  more 
agreeable  than  Wiesbaden.  But  it  is  also  a 
worse  place  for  me.  I  pass  ten  days  without 
doing  any  work,  gambling  like  a  lunatic.  Sad 
life !  At  last  we  are  back  at  Frankfort,  and 
thence  we  go  to  Cassel.  There  we  find 
Charlotte's  son  and  her  brother.  Dinner  with 
Furstenstein  ;  an  excellent  reception  everywhere. 
Dinner  with  Hardenberg.  It  is  a  curious 
position  for  me — the  third  husband." 

"  Staying  at  the  Hardenberg  Castle.  Pleasant 
family  life.  I  settle  down  to  work  pretty  well ; 
but  the  desire  for  independence  attacks  me  again, 
and  I  meditate  establishing  myself  at  Gottingen, 
where  I  take  an  apartment.  ...  A  letter  from 
Madame  de  Stael.  Her  position  does  not  get 
any  better,  and  that  distresses  me.     How  cruel 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

they  are  to  her  !     And  that  thought  attaches  me 
to  her  again. 

**  I  read  my  own  work  in  the  evening.  .  .  . 
Without  this  interest  in  my  work,  what  would 
become  of  me  ?     Charlotte  is  a  little  cross." 

"To-day,  October  25,  181 1,  I  am  forty-four. 
Have  I  really  made  a  good  use  of  this  two-thirds 
of  my  life  ?  I  must  try  and  do  better  with  the 
end  of  it.  1  have  a  sister-in-law  who  is  dry  and 
sharp-tempered — but  that  is  my  brother-in-law's 
business.  I  have  been  getting  on  with  my  work. 
My  book  makes  progress.  Charlotte  is  sweet 
and  good.  We  are  packing  up  to  go  to  Gottingen. 
These  horrible  removals!  I  wonder  how  many 
boxes  I  have  packed  in  the  course  of  my  life ! " 

"  Ball  till  three  in  the  morning.  No  annoying 
letters  to-day ;  that  is  so  much  time  gained.  A 
gay  supper  at  our  house.  Charlotte  made  herself 
very  amiable.  A  visit  from  her  son.  I  have  been 
reading  the  Fathers  of  the  Church — a  fresh  field 
to  be  gone  over." 

"  I  re-read  my  novel.  How  one's  impressions 
fade  when  the  circumstances  are  altered !  I  could 
not  write  it  again  now.  I  have  revised  the  end, 
which  I  consider  superb.  I  am  persecuted  with 
interruptions.  Connected  work  is  impossible 
here. 

"  Received  a  silly  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael. 
She  is  worth  less  consideration  than  I  thought" 

"We  decide  to  pass  a  month  at  Brunswick. 
What  a  number  of  souvenirs  I  find  there,  and 
what  a  number  of  old  friends !  Nevertheless,  my 
sadness  is  profound.     I  think  of  my  first  wife,  of 

264 


Frequent  Quarrels  with  Charlotte 

France,  of  Coppet — the  scattered  debris  of  a  past 
that  is  over  and  done  with.  And  what  is  my 
present  state  ?  What  my  future  ?  My  work  is 
my  only  interest  in  Hfe.  I  frequently  quarrel 
with  Charlotte.  I  should  not  like  to  wager  that 
we  shall  end  our  days  together. 

"  Dinner  and  evening  party  at  Giesdorfs.  An 
excellent  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael.  Alas ! 
Who  knows  ?  Sharp  dispute  with  Charlotte 
about  politics. 

"  Supper  at  Munckhausen's.  I  have  seen  my 
first  wife  again." 


265 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

The  campaign  of  persecution  at  Coppet — Birth  of  Madame  de 
Stael's  youngest  child — It  is  boarded  out — Madame  de  Stael 
starts  by  the  only  road  open  to  her  for  England — Vienna — 
Kiev — Moscow — St.  Petersburg — Stockholm — Benjamin  Con- 
stant at  Gottingen — His  regrets  for  Madame  de  Stael. 

As  time  passed  on,  the  life  at  Coppet  became 
more  and  more  unbearable,  and  flight  therefrom 
the  only,  though  a  very  difficult,  alternative.  The 
few  faithful  friends  who  still  visited  Madame  de 
Stael  there  did  so  at  the  risk  of  punishment. 
Notably  Mathieu  de  Montmorency  was  banished 
to  the  interior  of  France,  and  Madame  R^camier 
was  ordered  to  live  at  Chalons  for  showing  her 
this  proof  of  affection.  Count  Elz^ar  de  Sabran, 
drawing  on  his  imagination,  wrote  warning  her 
that  worse  things  were  probably  in  store  for  her. 
"  If  you  stay,"  he  predicted,  "  the  Emperor  will 
treat  you  like  Mary  Stuart :  nineteen  years  of 
unhappiness,  and  tragic  catastrophe  at  the  end 
of  them."  One  is  not  surprised  to  read  the  ad- 
mission that  relief  was  sought,  not  only  in  literary 
composition,  but  also  in  opium. 

The  drug,  however,  was  not  taken  to  the  point 
of  undermining  energy ;  and  the  idea  of  flight 
gained  ground,  though  the  act  was  delayed  for 
several  months.     Various    reasons  for  the  delay 

266 


The  Flight  from  Coppet 

are  given  in  Dix  Anndes  d'Exil — among  others  a 
fear  lest  Napoleon  "  should  cause  to  be  inserted 
in  the  newspapers  one  of  those  articles  which  he 
knows  how  to  dictate  when  he  wishes  to  commit 
moral  assassination ; "  but  the  true  reason  is 
probably  to  be  found  in  her  reluctance  to  face  the 
risks  of  a  perilous  journey  either  immediately 
before  or  immediately  after  the  birth  of  the  child 
which  she  bore  to  Rocca.  She  arranged  at  last, 
however,  to  leave  the  child  with  a  doctor  at 
Longirod,  in  the  Jura,  and  secretly  made  her 
preparations  to  depart. 

An  application  for  a  passport  for  America  had 
been  refused  ;  so  had  a  request  for  permission  to 
reside  at  Rome,  though  preferred  by  the  author 
of  Corinne,  and  supported  by  a  promise  not  to 
publish  even  so  much  as  a  line  of  verse.  Germany 
was  practically  a  French  dependency,  and  there- 
fore closed  to  her.  There  remained  England. 
It  was  for  fear  lest  she  should  go  to  England 
that  Madame  de  Stael  had  been  refused  a  pass- 
port for  the  United  States  ;  but  she  might  get  to 
England  by  way  of  Sweden,  getting  to  Sweden 
by  way  of  Russia,  and  to  Russia  by  way  of  Austria. 
The  Emperor  of  Austria  had  been  polite  to  her 
in  the  past,  and  would  hardly  suffer  her  to  be 
molested  now.  He  did  not  love  Napoleon,  though 
Napoleon  was  his  son-in-law.  These  were  hypo- 
theses upon  which  it  seemed  reasonable  to  act. 

An  exile  when  compelled  to  live  at  Coppet, 
Madame   de    Stael    felt    doubly    an    exile   when 

267 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

compelled  to  leave  it.  So  she  said  her  silent 
farewells  to  whatever  reminded  her  of  past  days  of 
happiness.  "I  revisited,"  she  says,  "my  father's 
study,  where  his  chair,  his  table,  and  his  papers 
remain  just  as  he  left  them ;  I  kissed  every 
treasured  souvenir  of  his  presence  ;  I  carried  away 
his  cloak,  which  hitherto  I  had  caused  to  be  left 
lying  on  his  chair,  and  took  it  with  me  that  I 
might  wrap  it  round  me  if  the  harbinger  of  death 
drew  near."  And  she  tells  how  she  wrote  her 
good-byes  to  her  friends,  and  continues  : — 

"On  the  following  day,  Saturday,  May  23, 
1812,  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  I  got  into 
my  carriage,  saying  that  I  should  be  back  for 
dinner.  I  took  no  luggage  whatsoever  with  me. 
I  carried  my  fan,  and  my  daughter  carried  hers, 
and  only  my  son  and  M.  Rocca  took  the  necessaries 
for  a  few  days'  travel  in  their  pockets.  As  we 
drove  down  the  Coppet  avenue,  leaving  the 
chateau  which  had  become,  as  it  were,  an  old 
friend  to  me,  I  nearly  fainted." 

And  so  to  a  farm  near  Berne,  where  it  had  been 
arranged  that  Schlegel  should  meet  the  party,  and 
where,  Madame  de  Stael  says,  her  courage  nearly 
abandoned  her,  and  she  felt  tempted  to  return 
before  the  Government  realised  that  she  had  fled. 
Her  children,  however,  persuaded  her  to  continue, 
and  she  did  so  ;  her  son  Auguste  returning,  after 
procuring  her  a  passport  from  the  Austrian 
Minister,  to  Coppet,  to  see  that  her  pecuniary 
interests  did  not  suffer.     Albert  de  Stael,  it  had 

268 


The  Journey  continued 

been  arranged,  was  to  follow  with  the  servants 
and  the  baggage,  and  it  was  not  until  he  did  so 
that  the  Prefect  realised  that  his  prisoner  had 
escaped. 

Then  the  people  of  Geneva  also  heard  the 
news  and  talked.  For  them  the  interesting  fact 
was  not  that  a  distinguished  authoress  had  run 
away  from  Napoleon,  but  that  a  distinguished 
neighbour  had  run  away  with  Rocca.  "This 
last  proof  of  the  spitefulness  of  her  enemies," 
writes  Sismondi  to  the  Comtesse  d'Albany,  "has 
annoyed  her  deeply  ;  "  while  she  herself  writes  to 
Madame  R^camier :  "  More  than  anyone  have  I 
experienced  slander."  But  she  went  on,  none  the 
less,  with  her  journey,  with  a  mind  besieged  by 
many  other  thoughts,  and  especially  by  sentiments 
of  bitterness  towards  the  Emperor.  "What  is 
his  fatherland?"  she  asked.  "It  is  the  land 
that  submits  to  him.  Who  are  his  fellow-citizens  ? 
The  slaves  who  obey  his  orders."  And  so  on, 
;kvithout  any  remarkable  adventure,  through 
Switzerland,  Bavaria,  and  Tyrol,  to  Vienna ; 
Rocca,  w;ho  had  quitted  her  at  Berne,  having 
rejoined  her  at  Salzburg. 

At  Vienna  it  was  necessary  to  wait  for  Russian 
passports.  The  Emperor  was  at  the  time  at 
Dresden,  where  Napoleon  was  entertaining  the 
European  monarchs  before  commencing  his 
invasion  of  Russia ;  and  Madame  de  Stael's 
reception  in  his  capital  was  less  courteous  than 
she  had  expected.     Her  disgrace  in  France  being 

269 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

largely  due  to  her  laudation  of  Germany,  it  was 
difficult  to  tell  her  that  she  was  persona  ingrata  ; 
but  spies  were,  nevertheless,  stationed  at  her 
door,  and  instructed  to  follow  her  whenever  she 
walked  or  drove  abroad.  There  was  some 
difficulty,  too,  about  Rocca's  status.  The  marriage 
having  been  a  secret  one,  Madame  de  Stael  could 
not  introduce  him  as  her  husband ;  and  he  was 
technically  a  deserter  from  the  French  army, 
whose  surrender  might  be  demanded.  His 
reception  in  official  circles  was,  in  the  circum- 
stances, impossible — a  state  of  things  which  his 
wife  must  have  found  humiliating ;  and  she  was 
naturally  relieved  when  permission  was  accorded 
to  her  to  start  for  St.  Petersburg  by  way  of  Galicia. 
In  the  Austrian  provinces,  however,  her  troubles 
increased.  Wherever  she  arrived,  some  Jack-in- 
office  was  there  to  worry  her ;  whenever  she 
wanted  to  rest,  she  was  hustled  on.  In  every 
posting-house  were  placarded  the  Government's 
instructions  to  the  police  to  keep  an  eye  on  her — 
a  publication  of  its  intentions  which  reminded  her 
of  M.  de  Sartines'  proposal  that  spies  should  be 
dressed  in  uniform.  There  was  a  time  when 
hysteria  overcame  her,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
take  her  out  of  her  carriage,  lay  her  down  on  the 
roadside,  and  dash  water  in  her  face.  There 
was  even  a  time  when  a  commissary  of  police 
told  her  son  that,  if  he  carried  out  his  instructions 
to  the  letter,  he  would  have  to  insist  on  sleeping 
in  her   bedroom  ;   to  which   the  fiery  Albert  re- 

270 


In  Russian  Territory 

plied  that,  if  the  commissary  did  insist,  he  would 
find  himself  pitched  out  of  window.  And  so  on 
until  the  Russian  frontier  was  safely  crossed  on 
July  14,  181 2 — the  twenty-third  anniversary  of  the 
fall  of  the  Bastille.  The  first  man  to  receive  her  in 
Russian  territory,  she  says,  was  an  exiled  French- 
man who  had  once  been  a  clerk  in  Necker's  bank. 
The  Grand  Army  was  already  invading ;  and 
the  direct  route  to  St.  Petersburg  being  already 
barred,  it  was  necessary  to  make  a  ddtour  by  way 
of  Moscow,  and  to  be  quick,  lest  that  route  should 
be  barred  also.  In  Volhynia — the  first  Russian 
province  which  she  entered — she  was  warned 
that  the  French  were  only  a  week's  march  behind 
her.  There  was  quite  a  chance  that  she  might 
find  herself  driven  to  travel  to  her  destination 
by  way  of  Odessa  and  Constantinople.  "  I  con- 
soled myself,"  she  writes,  "  by  thinking  of  a  poem 
on  Richard  Coeur-de-Lion  which  I  intend  to  write 
if  my  health  and  my  life  permit  me."  In  the 
meantime,  she  pressed  on  to  Kiev,  where  she  was 
"overwhelmed  with  amiable  cares,"  and  invited 
to  a  ball  which  she  had  no  time  to  attend,  by 
General  Miloradovitsch,  and  thence  took  the 
road  to  Moscow.  Her  trouble  there  was  to 
procure  horses.  Most  of  those  available  had 
been  requisitioned  for  the  war ;  and  once  again 
it  seemed  likely  that  the  Grand  Army  would  over- 
take the  fugitive,  and  make  her  look  ridiculous. 
Horses  were  found,  however,  and  the  welcome 
at    Tula   was    such   as    to    restore    self-respect  : 

271 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  Several  gentlemen  of  the  vicinity  came  to  my 
inn  to  compliment  me  on  my  writings,  and  the 
wife  of  the  Governor  received  me  with  sherbet 
and  roses,  in  the  Asiatic  fashion."  And  so  on 
to  the  capital. 

The  monotony  of  the  intervening  scenery 
haunted  Madame  de  Stael  "like  certain  meta- 
physical conceptions  of  which  the  mind  cannot 
divest  itself  when  once  it  has  laid  hold  of  them." 
To  relieve  her  imagination,  she  asked  the  peasant 
women  to  dance  for  her,  and  remarked  the 
"  modest  voluptuousness "  of  their  movements. 
In  due  course,  however,  the  gilded  cupolas 
appeared  in  sight.  The  party  had  gained  on 
the  Grand  Army  and  was  a  month  ahead  of  it. 
There  was  time  to  see  the  Kremlin  and  to  be 
entertained  by  the  notables  of  the  city  before 
departing  by  way  of  Novgorod  to  St.  Petersburg, 
where,  we  read,  "  I  saw  the  English  flag,  the 
emblem  of  liberty,  flying  on  the  Neva,  and  felt 
that,  by  embarking  on  the  ocean,  I  might  place 
myself  under  the  immediate  protection  of  Divine 
Providence." 

Again,  at  St.  Petersburg,  Madame  de  Stael 
was  well  received  and  nobly  entertained.  "  The 
principles  of  morality,"  she  discovered,  "were  not 
yet  firmly  fixed  in  the  heads  of  the  Russians." 
As  a  consequerxe,  her  intimacy  with  Rocca  raised 
no  awkward  questions ;  and  the  honours  shown 
to  her  are  a  proof  of  the  importance  attached  to 
Napoleon's  victim  outside  the  range  of  Napoleon's 

272 


Honoured  at  St.   Petersburg 

jurisdiction.  Orloff  invited  her  to  dinner  in  his 
island  on  the  Neva,  and  Narishkin,  the  Chamber- 
lain, entertained  her  at  his  country  seat.  She 
read  aloud  selected  chapters  of  the  suppressed 
work  on  Germany,  and  Stein  sought  and  obtained 
permission  to  make  copies  of  them  to  send  to 
his  wife.  Suvaroff  received  her  on  the  eve  of  his 
departure  for  the  war  which  Barclay  de  Tolly — 
the  Muscovite  Cunctator — had  already  won  for 
him ;  and,  unless  her  narrative  is  making  an 
undue  use  of  metaphor,  she  kissed  him  before 
she  let  him  go.  When  she  went  over  a  girls' 
school  conducted  under  Imperial  patronage,  one 
of  the  pupils  was  put  forward  to  recite  passages 
from  her  father's  Cours  de  morale  religieuse. 
She  was  presented  to  the  Empress ;  and  the 
Emperor  Alexander  presented  himself,  and 
apologised  for  his  autocratic  status.  A  good 
despot,  he  admitted,  he  might  be ;  but,  even  so, 
he  was  "only  a  happy  accident." 

There  was  a  temptation  to  remain,  but  time 
was  flying,  and,  as  the  September  days  elapsed, 
the  usual  signs  heralded  the  coming  of  the  winter. 
On  the  day  of  her  visit  to  Tsarskoe  Selo,  Madame 
de  Stael  noticed  that  the  flowers  of  the  South 
were  blown  upon  by  the  winds  of  the  North  ; 
and  she  made  up  her  mind  to  depart  by  way 
of  Finland.  Practically  the  whole  diplomatic 
corps,  she  tells  us,  came  to  see  her  off,  and  she 
took  ship  at  Abo,  and,  in  spite  of  her  fear  of  the 
sea,  arrived  safely  at  Stockholm,  where  she  passed 
s  273 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

eight  months,  mainly  occupied  in  the  composition 
of  that  Dix  Annies  d'Exil  from  which  this 
narrative  of  her  adventures  has  been  extracted. 
It  was  during  those  eight  months  that  the  Grand 
Army  was  destroyed,  and  that  the  European 
coalition  by  which  Napoleon's  power  was  ultimately 
broken  was  formed. 

Benjamin  Constant,  in  the  meantime,  was 
sitting  at  Gottingen,  bored  to  death,  and  in  his 
boredom  thinking  of  Madame  de  Stael,  and 
regretting  her. 

First  it  was  his  business  relations  with  her 
that  were  complicated,  as  he  tells  his  aunt,  by 
the  risks  of  a  lawsuit  brought  against  him  by 
his  father.  He  owed  her  money — ^an  uncertain 
amount,  impossible  to  calculate  exactly — ^and  she 
had  refused  to  take  it  from  him.  In  the  end, 
after  much  debate,  a  sum  had  been  agreed  upon 
which  was  to  be  paid  to  her  out  of  his  estate  on 
his  death.  The  unexpected  lawsuit  raised  a  doubt 
whether  he  would  be  able  to  carry  out  this 
undertaking;  but  his  father's  sudden  death 
removed  the  difficulty,  and  enabled  sentimental 
considerations  once  more  to  assume  the  upper 
hand. 

The  lovers,  though  they  were  both  married 
and  not  rightly  to  be  classed  as  lovers  any  longer, 
continued  to  correspond.  Most  of  the  corre- 
spondence is  lost ;  but  we  have  one  of  Madame  de 
Stael's  letters — a  letter  which  she  presumably  did 
not  show  to  Rocca — from  which  we  gather  that 

274 


spiritual  Loneliness 

Rocca's  love  had  not  sufficed  to  teach  her  to 
forget.  Two  years  have  elapsed,  she  reminds 
Benjamin,  since  she  has  seen  him,  and  two 
months  since  she  has  had  news  of  him.  What 
is  to  become  of  her  in  her  spiritual  loneliness  ? 
With  whom  is  she  to  talk,  and  how  to  exist  on 
her  own  resources?  She  has  kept  his  letters. 
She  looks  at  them  whenever  she  opens  her  desk, 
though  the  handwriting  makes  her  tremble.  And 
she  concludes : — 

"  My  father  and  you  and  Mathieu  share  a 
part  of  my  heart  that  is  eternally  closed.  There 
I  continually  suffer,  and  always  in  a  new  way.  I 
live  in  the  past,  and  were  I  about  to  be 
swallowed  up  by  the  waves,  my  voice  would 
utter  these  three  names — one  of  which  only  was 
harmful  to  me.  Is  it  possible  that  you  brought 
such  ruin  ?  that  such  despair  as  mine  could 
not  restrain  you?  No,  you  are  guilty,  and  only 
your  admirable  intellect  can  cause  me  any  further 
illusions.  Farewell,  farewell !  You  cannot  under- 
stand what  I  suffer." 

Yet  perhaps  he  did  understand,  for  he  was 
suffering  also.  He  observes  that  "Charlotte's 
character  is  changing."  He  hears  that  Madame 
de  Stael  is  ill,  and  talks  of  going  alone  to  Switzer- 
land. "Why,"  he  asks,  "did  I  marry  again?  It 
is  a  silly  situation,  and  a  silly  chain.  Formerly 
I  was  swept  along  by  a  torrent.  Nowadays,  I 
succumb  beneath  the  weight  of  a  burden." 
Then    there    comes    news,    incomplete    and    in- 

275 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

accurate,  apparently,  of  Madame  de  Stael's 
departure  from  Coppet,  and  the  entry  in  the 
Diary  is  as  follows  : — 

"  Madame  de  Stael  is  travelling  with  Rocca, 
but  she  no  longer  writes  to  me.  The  recollection 
of  her  and  of  Albertine  tears  my  heart  to  pieces. 
My  heart  tires  of  everything  that  it  possesses, 
and  regrets  everything  that  it  has  lost.  Perhaps, 
in  the  end,  the  sweetness  and  gentleness  of 
Charlotte  will  overcome  this  impression.  How 
sad  is  life,  and  what  a  fool  I  am !  I  make  my 
plans  for  a  journey  to  Vienna,  and  am  reminded 
of  the  efforts  Madame  de  Stael  made  to  drag  me 
there  with  her.  As  a  consequence  I  am  thinking 
of  making  with  Charlotte  the  expedition  which  I 
refused  to  make  with  the  most  intelligent  of 
women  for  my  companion.  God's  justice !  It 
is  a  singular  series  of  follies  which  has  caused 
me,  in  order  to  avoid  leaving  Paris,  to  con- 
tract a  marriage  which  has  stranded  me  at 
Gottingen." 

There  follow  quarrels  with  Charlotte,  alternated 
by  reconciliations,  and  recognitions  of  her  great 
though  placid  merit 

"  I  have  the  nuisance  of  moving  again.  What 
an  inconvenience  a  wife  is  !  A  lively  scene  with 
Charlotte.  She  was  really  in  the  wrong,  but  I 
am  always  so  in  form.  I  recognise  that  there 
is  good  in  Charlotte.  .  .  .  She  has  a  mania  for 
sitting  up  late,  which  causes  me  to  pass  abomin- 
ably bad  nights.  And,  remember,  I  got  married 
in  order  that  I  might  go  to  bed  early.  This  sort 
of  thing  cannot  last." 

276 


"  An  Unarrangeable  Life  " 

Then  the  names  of  Madame  de  Stael  and 
Charlotte  figure  side  by  side  in  the  same  day's 
entry. 

"  Charlotte  is  sweet  and  good.  I  conjure  up 
chimseras,  and  blame  others  for  the  follies  of 
my  own  mind.  Fundamentally  Charlotte  is  just 
like  all  women.  I  have  accused  individuals 
when  I  should  have  blamed  the  sex.  But  for 
my  work,  and  for  the  good  advice  that  I  need, 
I  miss  Madame  de  Stael  more  than  ever. 

"  Profound  sadness  ;  discontent  with  myself  and 
others.     The  two  things  always  go  together." 

"  A  letter  from  Madame  de  Stael  which  proves 
to  me  that  all  is  indeed  over  between  us.  So 
be  it !  It  is  my  own  doing.  And  now  let  me 
steer  my  course  through  Ijfe  alone,  and  not  let 
myself  be  any  more  embarrassed  by  ties  which 
offer  less  charm  than  did  the  old  ones." 

**  I  work  little  and  badly.  How  I  lose  my  time ! 
What  an  unarrangeable  life ! 

"  Fresh  scenes  with  Charlotte,  but  I  feel  that 
they  are  of  my  own  making.  Instead  of  being 
weak  and  hard,  I  ought  to  be  firm  and  gentle. 
I  feel  that  I  bear  the  burden  of  my  wife's  bore- 
dom and  of  my  own  as  well ;  it  is  very  heavy.  I 
have  lost  Madame  de  Stael,  and  I  shall  never 
recover  from  the  blow." 

"  Charlotte  is  back  from  a  visit  to  Cassel.  A 
long  conversation  on  the  inconvenience  of  divers 
things.  But  there  is  nothing  to  make  such  a 
talk  about.  The  one  actual  inconvenience  of  my 
life  is  that  I  am  married.     Georges  Dandin ! 

277 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

*'  On  such  a  day  as  this,  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  on  the  staircase  of  the  Hdtel  de  la 
Couronne,  at  Lausanne,  I  parted  from  Madame 
de  Stael,  who  said  that  she  thought  we  should 
never  see  each  other  again.  It  looks  like  it. 
Alas !     Dear  Albertine ! 

"  All  the  evening  my  mind  was  full  of  recol- 
lections and  regrets.  1  think  as  much  of  Madame 
de  Stael  as  I  did  ten  years  ago.  And  yet 
Charlotte  overwhelms  me  with  kindness." 

"  I  work,  and,  from  the  moral  point  of  view, 
am  not  so  bad  as  I  was.  Still,  I  must  cease 
eating  my  heart  out,  must  accept  my  position, 
and  make  the  best  of  it.  I  did  a  silly  thing  to 
break,  at  a  time  when  it  might  have  served  me, 
a  tie  which  I  had  preserved  and  endured  while 
it  injured  me.  I  regret  it ;  I  was  a  fool.  And 
what  now  ?  I  must  profit  by  what  I  have  done 
instead  of  suffering.  Nothing  is  quite  lost. 
Much  remains  to  me  —  more  than  I  deserve. 
Charlotte  will  do  what  I  wish.  Let  me  then 
employ  my  talents,  and  behave  reasonably 
instead  of  like  a  lunatic.  Let  me  make  Charlotte 
happy.     I  have  done  harm  enough  in  my  life." 


278 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

Madame  de  Stael  arrives  in  London  —  Murray  the  bookseller 
publishes  De  V Allemagne — The  qualities  and  defects  of  the 
book. 

Towards  the  end  of  June  1813,  Madame  de 
Stael  arrived  in  London.  Her  first  engagement 
was  to  attend  one  of  Lady  Jersey's  receptions. 
A  day  or  two  later,  *'  Murray  the  bookseller,"  as 
Crabb  Robinson  calls  him,  waited  upon  her  with 
proposals  for  the  publication  of  De  V Allemagne. 
His  offer  of  fifteen  hundred  guineas  was  accepted  ; 
and  Crabb  Robinson,  who  was  present  at  the 
interview,  assisted  in  drawing  up  the  agreement. 
Sent  at  once  to  the  printers,  the  work  appeared 
in  the  following  October,  and  was  instantly  and 
immensely  successful,  alike  with  the  public  and 
with  the  critics.  The  first  edition  was  exhausted 
in  a  few  days ;  and  the  Edinburgh  Review  pro- 
claimed its  author  the  greatest  literary  genius  of 
her  time — a  piece  of  nonsense  thoroughly  worthy 
of  the  critical  ^rgan  which  declared  that  Words- 
worth's poetry  would  "  never  do." 

The  idea,  indeed,  seems  to  have  prevailed  for 
a  period  that  Madame  de  Stael  had  discovered 
Germany,  and  was  the  only  critic,  whether 
English   or    French,   who   had    studied    German 

279 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

literature  and  understood  German  philosophy. 
And  that  too  was  nonsense.  The  Sorrows  of 
Werther  had  not  only  been  read,  but  had  even 
been  imitated  by  the  sentimental  youth  of  France 
before  the  Revolution — not  only  by  Ramond  de 
Carbonniere,  in  his  Dernieres  Aventures  du  jeune 
Olbon,  but  also  by  Madame  de  Stael  herself  in  her 
very  earliest  essays  in  fiction.  German  philosophy 
had  been  introduced  to  French  readers  not  by  her, 
but  by  her  friend  and  compatriot  Villers,  the  trans- 
lator of  the  works  of  Kant.  In  England  there  was 
Scott  who  had  translated  Biirger's  ballads,  and 
Coleridge  who  was  steeped  in  the  German  erudition 
with  which  Madame  de  Stael  was  merely  sprinkled  ; 
and  the  superiority  of  the  latter  authority  probably 
transpired  when  the  two  authors  met.  That,  at 
any  rate,  seems  the  most  reasonable  interpretation 
of  Madame  de  Stael's  well-known  remark,  that 
Coleridge  was  admirable  at  monologue  but  had 
no  idea  of  duologue.  He  felt  doubtless,  when 
German  subjects  came  to  the  front,  that  he  had 
nothing  to  learn  but  much  to  teach,  and  spoke, 
therefore,  as  the  master  addressing  the  disciple. 
It  was  a  breach  of  manners,  but  the  temptation 
to  commit  it  must  have  been  strong. 

Another  article  of  faith  with  the  critics  of  the 
period  was  that  Madame  de  Stael's  intellect  was 
of  the  distinctively  masculine  type.  She  certainly 
exercised  her  mind  on  topics  of  which  men,  at 
that  date,  usually  monopolised  the  discussion. 
Perhaps  she  even  tried  to  discuss  them  after  the 

280 


The  Feminine  Point  of  View 

manner  of  a  man ;  but  in  this  she  did  not  succeed. 
To  say  that  the  feminine  point  of  view  "  keeps 
breaking  in "  would  be  to  understate  the  case. 
Whether  she  is  deaHng  with  politics  or  with  philo- 
sophy, the  feminine  point  of  view  obtrudes  itself  on 
almost  every  page.  Only  a  woman's  blind  affection 
could  have  made  the  career  of  Necker  the  pivot  of 
the  history  of  revolutionary  France ;  only  a  woman 
could  have  qualified  one  of  Kant's  great  generalisa- 
tions with  the  words,  "  Pour  les  ames  sensibles." 

The  truth  is  that,  in  so  far  as  Madame  de 
Stael  wrote  like  a  man,  she  wrote  badly,  not 
thinking  for  herself,  but  reproducing  what  men 
had  told  her.  We  have  seen  how  she  padded 
Corinne  with  art  criticisms  which  Schlegel 
practically  dictated.  De  V Allemagne  is  full  of 
moral  and  metaphysical  philosophy  derived  from 
the  same  source.  As  a  disquisition  it  has  about 
as  much  importance  as  an  undergraduate's  notes 
of  a  lecture  to  which  he  has  just  listened.  A 
good  deal  of  the  lecture  is  no  doubt  accurately 
transcribed ;  much  of  the  exposition  of  Kantianism, 
for  instance,  may  pass  as  a  popular  version  of 
the  system.  But  the  criticisms  passed  upon  the 
system,  being  sentimental  and  not  philosophic, 
show  that  its  principles  have  not  really  been 
grasped.  The  feminine  point  of  view,  in  short, 
breaks  in  and  reminds  the  reader  of  the  question 
which  Crabb  Robinson  addressed  to  Madame  de 
Stael  at  Weimar :  "  Madame,  je  me  demande  si 
vous  avez  compris  le  veritable  sens  des  mots." 

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Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

In  looking  for  the  merits  of  the  book,  therefore, 
we  must  give  up  the  philosophy. 

To  a  large  extent,  too,  we  must  give  up  the 
politics.  Madame  de  Stael  had  a  keen  eye  for 
the  obvious  and  the  actual,  but  very  little  power 
of  perceiving  a  latent  tendency.  The  provincialism 
— one  might  almost  say  the  parochialism — of 
Germany  leapt  to  her  eyes.  It  was  a  country 
without  a  capital — consequently  without  any  single 
literary  or  artistic  centre  dictating  laws  of  taste. 
Patriotism,  in  the  French  and  English  sense  of 
the  word,  was  lacking,  and  so  were  men  of  action. 
It  was  only  in  speculation  that  the  German  genius 
was  remarkable. 

That  was  the  superficial  view  of  Germany 
which  almost  any  observer  would  have  felt 
warranted  in  taking  at  the  time  when  Madame 
de  Stael  visited  Weimar  and  Berlin ;  but  much 
had  happened  since  then,  and,  to  the  discerning, 
certain  potentialities  had  been  revealed.  The 
stricken  field  of  Jena  had  awakened  a  good  many 
Germans  from  their  dogmatic  slumbers ;  the 
lesson  of  defeat  had  been  learnt  Stein  had  set 
to  work  to  re-organise  the  Prussian  army  ;  Korner 
had  sung  his  patriotic  songs ;  the  spirit  of  Pan- 
germanism  had  begun  to  stir,  and  was  soon  to  find 
its  visible  expression  in  the  battle  of  the  nations 
at  Leipzig.  But  Pangermanism  was  a  develop- 
ment which  Madame  de  Stael  did  not  foresee. 
Judged  by  that  test,  again  her  work  must  be  con- 
demned as  wanting  in  vision. 

282 


Unflattering  Picture  of  Germany 

In  truth,  her  real  interests  were  not  in  either 
metaphysical  or  political  philosophy.  When  she 
wrote  of  such  matters,  she  wrote  as  one  giving  a 
performance  for  which  she  had  been  carefully 
coached.  The  personalities  of  politics  were 
always  more  to  her  than  its  principles ;  and  her 
utterances  were  spontaneous,  original,  and  acute 
only  when  she  discussed  social  and  sentimental 
questions  :  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  her  sex,  the 
manners  and  tone  of  good  society,  love,  happiness, 
marriage,  and  divorce.  It  is  mainly,  if  not 
entirely,  in  relation  to  these  questions  that  her 
picture  of  Germany  is  valuable. 

For  what  reason  the  French  censor  found  her 
remarks  on  these  matters  objectionable  it  is 
difficult  at  this  date  to  see.  The  picture  decidedly 
is  not  one  that  vain  Germans  would  be  likely  to 
regard  as  flattering.  Though  they  are  credited 
with  solid  qualities,  they  are  denied  all  the  graces 
which  make  life  agreeable.  Their  powers  of  con- 
versation are  held  up  to  ridicule  and  contempt. 
Talk,  as  distinguished  from  argument,  is,  Madame 
de  Stael  maintains,  impossible  in  a  language 
in  which  an  unfinished  sentence  conveys  no 
meaning  because  the  verb  which  gives  the  key 
to  the  mystery  has  to  be  held  in  reserve.  Social 
intercourse,  it  is  added,  is  made  barbarous  by  the 
rigidity  of  German  etiquette.  "  Everyone  is  kept 
in  his  place  as  if  it  were  the  post  of  duty ; " 
whereas,  in  France,  the  salon  had  anticipated  the 
career  in  being  open  to  the  talents.     The  good 

283 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

manners  of  the  upper  classes,  in  so  far  as  these 
are  to  be  described  as  good,  are  by  no  means 
diffused  through  the  community ;  the  mercantile 
classes  are  ignorant  and  coarse.  And  so  forth, 
till  the  impartial  reader  gathers  the  impression 
that  the  German  rather  than  the  French  censor 
was  the  proper  functionary  to  take  offence. 

On  these  matters,  however,  Madame  de  Stael 
writes  with  a  gusto  which  is  still  entertaining 
because  her  comments  are  still  largely  true.  She 
holds  our  attention  because  she  is  not  lecturing 
but  sounding  the  personal  note  ;  and  she  sounds 
that  note  even  more  emphatically  when  she  treats 
of  sentimental  themes.  Nothing  is  more  character- 
istic than  her  insertion,  in  the  midst  of  her  examina- 
tion of  the  various  German  svstems  of  Ethics,  of 
a  chapter  entitled  "  De  I'amour  dans  le  mariage." 
It  was  a  subject  on  which  she  had  begun  to  think 
before  she  was  married,  and  which  continued  to 
haunt  her  long  after  she  was  left  a  widow,  though 
one  suspects  that  the  word  "  marriage  "  became  a 
form  of  speech  employed  to  describe  her  relations 
not  with  her  husband  but  with  her  lovers. 

"In  an  unhappy  marriage,"  she  bursts  out, 
"  there  is  a  violence  of  distress  surpassing  all 
other  sufferings  in  the  world.  A  woman's  whole 
soul  depends  upon  the  conjugal  tie.  To  struggle 
against  fate  alone,  to  journey  to  the  grave  with- 
out a  friend  to  support  you  or  to  regret  you,  is  an 
isolation  of  which  the  deserts  of  Arabia  give  but 
a  faint  and  feeble  idea ;  and  when  all  the  treasure 

2^4 


Sorrowful  News 

of  your  youth  has  been  given  in  vain,  when  you 
can  no  longer  hope  that  the  reflection  of  these 
first  rays  will  shine  upon  the  end  of  your  life, 
when  there  is  nothing  in  the  dusk  to  remind  you 
of  the  dawn,  and  when  the  twilight  is  pale  and 
colourless  as  a  livid  spectre  that  precedes  the  night, 
your  heart  revolts,  and  you  feel  that  you  have 
been  robbed  of  the  gifts  of  God  upon  earth." 

A  passionate  complaint  truly,  and  one  which 
perhaps  comes  strangely  from  the  woman  who 
had  deserted  her  first  husband  for  M.  de  Narbonne, 
and  while  living  with  her  second  husband  con- 
tinued to  write  love  letters  to  Benjamin  Constant ! 
And  yet,  in  a  sense,  absolutely  sincere,  being,  as 
it  were,  a  summary  of  all  the  wrongs  which  she 
had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  all  her  lovers ! 

To  those  who  met  Madame  de  Stael  in  London, 
however,  it  may  well  have  appeared  that,  what- 
ever her  griefs,  she  suffered  chiefly  on  paper.  Two 
items  of  sorrowful  news  reached  her.  She  heard 
of  the  death  of  her  second  son,  Albert,  whose 
head  was  actually  sliced  off  in  a  duel  with  a 
Cossack  officer  ;  and  she  also  heard  of  the  death 
of  her  first  lover,  M.  de  Narbonne,  from  typhus 
fever  contracted  in  a  garrison  town.  But  she 
was  none  the  less  delighted  to  be  the  lion  of  the 
season,  succeeding  in  that  character  to  Maria 
Edgeworth,  who  had  succeeded  to  Lord  Byron. 
Miss  Berry  met  her  at  dinner  on  the  evening  of 
the  day  on  which  the  news  of  Narbonne's  death 
had  arrived.     "One  must  acknowledge,"  is  the 

285 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

sardonic  comment  in  her  Journal,  "  that  one  could 
not  lose  an  old  lover  more  gaily,  as  it  was  said 
of  Charles  the  Seventh  of  his  kingdom." 

Her  losses  certainly  kept  her  in  seclusion  no 
more  than  did  her  daughter's  attack  of  the 
measles.  Society  was  circumscribed  in  those  days. 
Within  its  limits  she  went  everywhere  and  met 
everybody,  straying  occasionally  beyond  its  limits 
to  meet  the  men  and  women  of  letters  whom  the 
circle  did  not  include.  All  the  memoirs,  diaries, 
and  letters  of  the  period  are  full  of  her  name ; 
the  commentators  are  unanimous  in  paying  tribute 
to  the  copious  eloquence  of  her  conversation. 
"  She  talks  folios,"  is  Byron's  verdict ;  and  the 
references  to  her  in  Miss  Berry's  Journal  are  mostly 
to  the  same  effect  *'  Madame  de  Stael,"  she  says, 
"  came,  talked,  questioned,  and  went  away  again 
like  a  flash  of  lightning,  or  rather  like  a  torrent ; " 
and  she  writes,  about  a  month  later,  to  Sir  William 
Gell :  "  You  have  just  come  in  time  to  save 
Madame  de  Stael's  life,  who  certainly  would  have 
roared  herself  to  death  in  another  week. "  Similarly, 
to  Lady  Hardwicke,  who  complains  that  she  has  lost 
her  voice,  she  offers  the  consolation  that  "there 
cannot  certainly  be  a  more  convenient  visitor  to 
a  dumb  woman  than  Madame  de  Stael ; "  while  a 
letter  to  Lady  Georgiana  Morpeth  contains  the 
remark :  "  The  Stael  left  Richmond  much  about 
the  same  time  that  we  left  Twickenham,  and 
wherever  she  is,  there  will  society  be  also — if  it  is 
to  be  had  within  ten  miles  d,  la  ronde.     Except 

286 


Social  Triumphs 

during  her  visit  to  Bowood,  and  now  that  she  is 
for  a  week  at  Middleton,  she  has  been  constantly 
in  town,  giving  very  agreeable  dinners  and  soirdes, 
with  two  or  three  women  and  half  a  dozen  men — 
dont  elle  se  charge  toute  seule" 

The  list  of  the  eminent  personages  whose 
acquaintance  Madame  de  Stael  made  or  renewed 
might  easily  be  extended  to  fill  several  pages. 
She  entered  society  through  one  door  with  Lady 
Jersey  and  through  another  door  with  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  and  Crabb  Robinson.  At  Sir  Hum- 
phry Davy's  house  she  dined  with  Sheridan, 
Whitbread,  and  Grattan.  Visiting  Lord  Lans- 
downe's  country  seat,  she  met  Etienne  Dumont 
and  Sir  Samuel  Romilly.  As  she  was  anxious  to 
know  Godwin,  a  party  was  arranged  for  the  pur- 
pose. Lord  Liverpool  entertained  her.  The 
Duchess  of  Devonshire  took  her  to  pay  a  call  in 
her  barouche,  and  she  "related  for  nearly  an  hour 
the  works  that  she  thought  of  writing. "  She  is  more 
than  once  accused  of  "monopolising"  Curran ; 
and  Coleridge,  as  we  have  seen,  compelled  her  to 
listen  to  him.  Byron  took  a  journey  of  sixty 
miles  in  order  to  be  presented,  and  relates  that 
"  she  justified  what  I  had  heard,"  but  "  was  still 
a  mortal  and  made  long  speeches,"  adding  that 
she  preached  politics  to  the  politicians,  and  that 
"the  sovereign  himself  was  not  exempt  from  this 
flow  of  eloquence."  Other  names  which  one 
meets  in  the  various  chronicles  of  her  sojourn 
are  those  of  the  Dukes  of  Sussex  and  Gloucester, 

287 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Lords  Stafford  and  Harrowby,  Lady  Holland, 
Wilberforce,  Brougham,  Malthus,  Rogers,  whom 
she  ranked  next  to  Scott  among  the  English 
poets  of  the  day,  Croker  of  the  Qtiarterly,  and 
Bowles,  the  parson  sonnetteer.  The  most  jealous 
of  her  enemies  could  not  have  denied  the  com- 
pleteness of  her  social  triumph. 

Nor  was  it  in  society  alone  that  her  personality 
made  its  impression.  Its  influence  was  exerted 
through  her  books  no  less  than  through  her 
conversation  ;  and  Crabb  Robinson  tells  a  striking 
story  of  the  case  of  the  daughter  of  a  country 
clergyman,  whose  perusal  of  a  translation  of 
Delphine  and  Corinne  "  so  powerfully  affected  her 
in  her  secluded  life  as  quite  to  turn  her  brain." 
The  young  woman  wrote  to  the  author,  asking 
to  be  allowed  to  become  her  amanuensis,  and, 
not  satisfied  with  the  formal  refusal  of  her 
services  conveyed  through  a  private  secretary, 
found  a  means  of  being  presented.  She  threw 
herself  at  Madame  de  Stael's  feet,  and  repeated 
her  request,  but  was  admonished  on  the  folly 
of  her  desire.  "  Domestic  life,"  Madame  de  Stael 
assured  her,  "  affords  more  permanent  happiness 
than  any  that  fame  can  give.  You  have  a  father — 
I  have  none.  You  have  a  home — I  was  led  to  travel 
because  I  was  driven  from  mine.  Be  content  with 
your  lot;  if  you  knew  mine,  you  would  not  desire  it" 

With  these  words  the  petitioner  was  dismissed. 
"  The  cure,"  Crabb  Robinson  solemnly  adds, 
"was    complete.     The    young    woman    returned 

288 


Still  Bound  by  Sentimental  Chains 

to  her  father,  became  more  steadily  industrious, 
and,  without  ever  speaking  of  her  adventure  with 
Madame  de  Stael,  silently  profited  by  it.  She 
is  now,"  he  concludes,  "  living  a  life  of  great 
respectability,  and  her  friends  consider  that  her 
cure  was  wrought  by  the  only  hand  by  which 
it  could  have  been  effected." 

Evidently  Madame  de  Stael's  days  throughout 
that  London  season  and  for  some  months  after- 
wards were  well  filled.  How  far  she  enjoyed 
the  gaieties  in  which  she  participated,  and  how 
far  she  merely  sought  in  them  deception  and  escape 
from  the  disappointments  of  the  realities,  one 
dares  not  venture  to  decide.  All  that  one  can 
say  with  absolute  certainty  is  that,  in  the  midst 
of  her  dissipations  and  her  studies,  Madame 
de  Stael  did  not  quite  shake  herself  free  from 
the  sentimental  chains  that  bound  her.  She 
moved  in  a  blaze  of  social  success  and  literary 
glory ;  she  was  storing  up  knowledge  for  the 
purpose  of  writing  a  great  work  on  the  British 
Constitution — a  work  which  she  is  said  to  have 
asked  Murray  to  commission  for  a  fee  of  six 
thousand  guineas.  She  was  attended  by  her 
husband,  whom  it  was  her  duty  as  well  as  her 
privilege  to  love.  But,  even  so,  Benjamin  Con- 
stant, to  whom  she  had  meant  to  say  farewell 
for  ever,  was  never  for  long  out  of  her  thoughts. 
She  had  said  her  last  good-byes  to  him,  as  she  sup- 
posed, in  November  1812  ;  and  already,  in  August 
181 3,  she  was  corresponding  with  him  again. 
T  289 


CHAPTER   XXV 

Benjamin  Constant  at  Gottingen — His  intrigue  on  behalf  of  the 
Crown  Prince  of  Sweden — It  comes  to  nothing,  and  he  goes  to 
Paris — Madame  de  Stael's  letters  to  him — Rocca  is  not  to  be 
•'  a  hindrance  " — Napoleon  having  abdicated,  Madame  de  Stael 
goes  to  Paris. 

At  the  time  when  Madame  de  Stael  was  the 
flashing  comet  of  a  London  season,  Benjamin 
Constant  was  boring  himself  to  extinction  in 
small  German  towns,  dining,  as  we  have  seen, 
"with  all  the  Hardenbergs  in  the  world,"  over- 
whelmed rather  than  sustained  by  the  sweetness 
and  goodness  of  Charlotte.  He  knew  nothing 
of  the  marriage  with  Rocca,  whom  he  supposed 
merely  to  have  succeeded  to  his  own  post  as 
lover.  "Hdlas!  chere  Albertine!"  had  been  the 
exclamation  wrung  from  him  by  the  farewell 
letter ;  and  then  he  turned  to  seek  such  con- 
solation as  he  could  derive  from  his  social 
environment  and  his  book  about  Religion. 

One  of  his  neighbours  was  his  first  wife,  but 
his  heart  did  not  go  back  to  her;  he  merely 
remarks,  in  his  letters,  upon  the  curious  tastes 
which  she  has  developed  with  the  years.  "  She 
keeps,"  he  writes  to  his  aunt,  "one  hundred  and 
twenty  birds,  two  squirrels,  thirty-six  cats,  eight 
dogs,    and    a    number    of    other    miscellaneous 

290 


Benjamin  Constant  at  Gottingen 

animals.  They  all  live  in  a  large  apartment 
adjoining  her  bedroom,  and  she  has  to  employ 
three  women  to  keep  the  menagerie  in  a  state 
of  passable  cleanliness.  Besides  this,  the  small 
boys  of  the  town  amuse  themselves  by  throwing 
all  the  stray  cats  and  dogs  they  can  find  into  her 
garden,  and  she  takes  care  of  them  all  until  she 
can  find  a  home  for  them." 

Another  letter  of  about  the  same  date  contains 
an  interesting  comment  on  some  amorous  intrigue 
of  no  special  importance  of  which  he  has  heard. 
"What  strikes  me  in  this  story,"  he  remarks, 
"is  the  utter  failure  of  great  public  events  to 
disturb  our  social  and  conjugal  habits.  The  world 
is  on  fire ;  men  kill  and  ruin  one  another.  All  the 
nations  are  threatened,  and  all  the  individuals  are 
trying  their  best  to  keep  afloat  in  the  midst  of  the 
general  shipwreck  ;  and  yet  women  still  find  time  to 
be  unfaithful  to  their  husbands,  and — what  is  more 
remarkable — the  husbands  find  time  to  be  jealous." 

The  book  is  also  mentioned.  One  day  the 
author  worked  at  it  from  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning  until  six  o'clock  at  night.  But  little 
progress  is  made,  and  the  blame  is  thrown  upon 
the  Gottingen  Library.  It  "is  like  an  ocean  in 
which  one  loses  oneself.  Hardly  have  I  read 
what  seems  indispensable  for  my  purpose,  than  I 
discover  something  which  it  is  still  more  indispen- 
sable to  read.  If  I  stayed  here  for  twenty  years  I 
should  be  no  farther  on  than  I  am  to-day."  All 
the  letters,  in  short,  are  the  letters  of  a  man  who 

291 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

is  eating  his  heart  out  with  boredom — who  feels 
more  and  more  the  need  of  active  occupation. 

Presently  the  active  occupation  was  found. 
The  end  of  Napoleon's  dominion  was  clearly  at 
hand.  Benjamin  s  letters  trace  the  course  of  his 
downfall  in  the  form  of  an  allegory,  designed  to 
deceive  the  censor.  The  Emperor  is  referred  to 
as  Jacqueline,  and  his  battles  are  called  lawsuits. 
Jacqueline  is  losing  her  cases,  and  is  likely  to  be 
sent  home  to  her  village.  Napoleon,  that  is  to  say, 
is  losing  his  battles,  and  will  have  to  abdicate.  And 
what  then  ?  It  is  not  at  all  certain  that  a  Bourbon 
Restoration  will  be  acceptable  to  France.  There 
is  room,  at  all  events,  for  an  alternative  intrigue. 

So  an  intrigue  was  set  on  foot — a  poor  little 
intrigue,  of  which  the  historians  hardly  take  cognis- 
ance, and  about  which  we  find  little  information 
elsewhere  than  in  the  Journal  IntiTne.  From  this, 
however,  we  gather  that  Bernadotte,  now  the 
Crown  Prince  of  Sweden,  thought  that  it  might 
be  possible  to  secure  the  succession  to  the  French 
throne  for  himself  or  his  son,  and  that  Benjamin 
Constant  was  asked,  and  consented,  to  help.  He 
hesitated,  it  is  true.  "  I  must  not  forget,"  he 
writes,  "  the  natural  timidity  of  my  disposition, 
and  I  must  not  act  like  a  lunatic  to  console  myself 
for  having  acted  like  a  fool."  But  the  hesitation 
was  overcome,  and  Charlotte  raised  no  objections, 
but  was  willing  to  stay  quietly  at  home  while  her 
husband  went  forth  in  pursuit  of  adventures. 

The  language  in  which  the  Diary  deals  with 

292 


Collapse  of  the  Swedish  Intrigue 

the  matter  is  rather  cryptic.  The  Swedish  Prince 
figures  there  as  "  Le  Bdarnais,"  the  Bernadotte 
family  belonging  to  the  department  of  B^arn. 
He  came  to  see  Benjamin,  and  invited  him  to 
dinner,  showed  him  some  "  very  propitious  "  letters, 
made  a  further  appointment,  and  departed.  **  Our 
plans,"  notes  Benjamin,  "  are  developing ; "  but 
he  adds  :  "  I  must  make  haste  if  I  am  to  be  in  at 
the  death."  The  Prince  confers  upon  him  the 
Order  of  the  Polar  Star — "which  gives  me 
pleasure ;  "  and  then  he  travels  night  and  day  to 
meet  the  Prince  at  Liege,  where  all  his  promising 
schemes  collapse,  as  he  relates  in  enigmatic  sen- 
tences. When  he  tries  to  see  the  Prince,  he 
hears  that  he  is  ill,  and  perceives  that  the  Prince's 
attendants  are  putting  obstacles  in  his  way.  The 
Prince  makes  a  speech  to  the  French  prisoners, 
and  is  not  well  received.  Events  meanwhile  are 
moving  fast :  Talleyrand  is  active ;  Louis  xviii. 
is  proclaimed ;  and  the  B^arnais  returns  to  Paris 
without  even  having  set  foot  in  France.  But 
Benjamin  goes  on  to  Paris,  accompanied  by 
Auguste  de  Stael,  whom  he  has  picked  up  at 
Louvain,  leaving  his  wife  in  Germany. 

That  is  the  whole  history  of  the  Swedish 
intrigue ;  and  there  has  rarely  been  an  intrigue 
more  foolish  and  futile.  Madame  de  Stael, 
however,  heard  of  it,  and  was  interested,  and  it 
was  indirectly  the  cause  of  the  renewal  of  her 
relations  with  her  lover.  A  letter  to  Schlegel 
shows    how   closely   she    was   watching    events. 

293 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"What,"  she  asks,  "Is  Benjamin  about,  and  is 
your  Prince  making  use  of  him  ?  He  owes  me 
something  for  the  zeal  with  which  I  sing  his  praises 
and  defend  him  against  the  envy  of  others."  And 
at  the  same  time  she  was  exchanging  letters  with 
Benjamin  himself.  One  of  his  letters  to  her  is  de- 
scribed as  being  "  more  passionate  than  in  the  days 
when  he  loved  me  most ; "  and  if  we  had  the  whole 
correspondence  before  us,  we  should  probably  be 
able  to  say  the  same  of  some  of  her  letters  to  him. 
A  few  of  the  letters  were  printed,  long  ago,  in 
Strodtmann's  Dichter-profile  und  Character- kopfe  ; 
others  were  quite  recently  published  by  permission 
of  the  Baroness  de  Nolde,  great-granddaughter^ 
of  Madame  de  Constant,  in  the  American  Critic. 
They  contain  a  few,  but  not  very  many,  political 
allusions.  We  read,  for  instance,  that  Lord 
Liverpool  considered  the  Swedish  Prince's  ad- 
dress to  the  French,  of  which  he  had  seen  a 
draft,  "the  finest  thing  that  he  had  seen  in  his 
life."  There  is  talk,  too,  about  books  and 
publishers.  We  read  of  the  great  success  of  De 
V Allemagne,  and  Madame  de  Stael  offers  to 
arrange  with  Murray  for  an  English  edition 
of  the  much  -  talked  -  of  work  on  Religions. 
Albertine's  name  also  occurs  again  and  again. 
Benjamin,  we  infer,  never  wrote  without  sending 
the  child  an  affectionate  message  which  called  for 
a  reply.  But  the  chief  note  of  the  letters  was 
that  of  lamentation  for  lost  happiness. 
^  By  her  first  husband. 
294 


Lamentation  for  Lost  Happiness 

"Benjamin,"  we  read  in  one  of  them,  "you 
have  destroyed  my  hfe !  For  ten  years  no  day 
has  gone  by  without  suffering  on  your  account. 
How  I  loved  you !  Let  us  leave  all  that  alone, 
as  it  is  so  cruel — and  yet  I  shall  never  be  able  to 
forgive  you,  as  I  have  never  ceased  to  suffer. 
.  .  .  Our  life  is  as  a  house  built  on  the  sand  and 
full  of  weariness — nothing  but  sorrow  endures." 

Another  striking  passage  is  :  "I  do  not  wish 
to  die  without  seeing  you  again,  without  having 
spoken  to  you  as  I  used  to  speak ;  but  I  should 
wish  to  die  after,  because  you  have  hurt  me  to  the 
depths  of  my  soul,  and  you  will  wound  me  again. 
Adieu,  adieu.  I  am  always  as  I  have  been,  and 
you  can  still  tell  yourself  that  I  have  shed  tears 
only  on  the  death  of  my  unfortunate  child  and  on 
your  letters  ;  the  rest  is  a  cloud,  but  real  life  is  pain." 

In  one  of  the  letters  Madame  de  Stael  writes 
that  she  is  in  very  poor  health,  and  may  die  at 
any  time.  One  may  suspect  the  appeal  ad 
misericordiam,  but  the  same  report  reached  her 
friends  at  Geneva.  "Her  stomach  gets  worse 
and  worse  every  day,"  writes  Madame  Rilliet- 
Huber  to  Henri  Meister  at  a  date  at  which 
we  know  her  to  have  been  dining  out  almost  daily. 
Indisposition,  however,  by  no  means  diverted  her 
thoughts  from  her  old  lover.  She  invited  not  only 
him  but  his  wife  to  visit  her,  promising  that  "  I  shall 
in  nowise  accuse  her  of  what  I  found  it  too  cruel  to 
accuse  you  of  yourself  in  former  days. "  She  assured 
him  at  the  same  time  that  he  might  renew  his  rela- 
tions with  her  without  fear  of  the  wrath  of  Rocca. 

295 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  M.  de  Rocca  will  behave  to  you  as  he  does  to 
M.  de  Montmorency.  Our  mutual  attachment  is 
formed  for  life ;  he  helped  me  in  my  misfortune 
with  such  noble  courage  and  such  tenderness  of 
heart  that  I  shall  never  forget  it.  He  has  become 
another  being,  and  you  will  recognise  neither  his 
manners  nor  his  conversation.  Do  not,  then, 
think  of  him  as  a  hindrance.  .  .  .  It  is  not  for  a 
week,  but  for  life,  that  we  should  settle  in  the 
same  place  ;  but  will  you  do  it }  " 

Thus,  in  these  fragments  of  a  striking  corre- 
spondence, we  see  Madame  de  Stael  form  her 
plans.  She  is  strong  enough,  she  thinks,  to  tear 
her  way  through  entanglements — clever  enough 
to  thrid  the  mazes  of  the  most  complicated  senti- 
mental situations.  Since  she  means  well,  nothing 
that  she  does  can  be  wrong.  She  will  be  equally 
kind  to  all  her  lovers,  reckoning  her  husband  as 
one  of  them.  They  shall  form  a  happy  family, 
taking  it  in  turns  to  enjoy  the  greater  share  of  her 
favours  and  the  chief  place  in  her  regard.  For 
the  time  being  Rocca  must  give  way  to  Benjamin ; 
he  is  good  and  amenable,  and  he  will  not  mind. 

The  course  of  public  events,  as  it  happened, 
was  favourable  to  her  purpose.  The  Allies  had 
beaten  Napoleon  at  Leipzig  ;  they  had  outflanked 
him  and  marched  round  him  in  the  French  cam- 
paign of  the  early  months  of  1814  ;  they  were  in 
Paris,  and  it  was  open  to  the  exiles  to  return. 
Madame  de  Stael  would  doubtless  have  returned 
in  any  case.     She  who,  sitting  by  the  blue  waters 

296 


The  Return  to  Paris 

of  Lake  Leman,  had  sighed  for  the  gutter  of 
the  Rue  du  Bac,  could  not  conceivably  have 
resisted  that  temptation.  Considerations  of 
business  as  well  as  of  pleasure  drew  her  thither ; 
for  now  that  the  Emperor  had  abdicated,  there 
was  more  than  a  chance  that  the  debt  of  the 
French  Treasury  to  Necker  might  be  paid. 
Above  all,  however,  the  lover  to  whom  she  had 
said  so  many  last  good-byes  was  there ;  and  she 
felt  that  she  must  hasten  to  him,  even  as,  long 
ago,  in  the  days  of  her  youth,  she  had  hastened 
to  Mickleham  to  meet  M.  de  Narbonne. 

"  She  made  me  some  extraordinary  con- 
fidences," says  Miss  Berry,  who  continued  to 
see  her  frequently  until  her  departure.  We  do 
not  know  what  the  confidences  were,  but  we  can 
guess,  for  though  Madame  de  Stael  concealed 
her  marriage,  she  never  made  a  mystery  of  her 
love  affairs.  Miss  Berry,  we  gather,  did  not 
take  the  confessions  very  seriously.  "  Emotion," 
she  says,  "  is  not  what  she  excites  nor  what  she 
feels  except  momentarily.  She  does  not  dwell 
long  enough  upon  anything ;  life,  characters,  and 
even  feelings  pass  before  her  eyes  like  a  magic 
lantern.  She  spends  herself  upon  paper,  and 
runs  through  the  world  to  see  all,  to  hear  all,  and 
to  say  all — to  excite  herself,  and  to  give  it  all 
back  to  the  world,  and  to  the  society  from  whence 
she  has  drawn  it."  "  Now  she  is  gone,"  she  adds 
in  a  letter,  "while  /  am  regretting  her,  she  will 
never  think  more  of  me  until  we  meet  again." 

297 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Perhaps  not.  Her  mind,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  occupied  with  more  engrossing  thoughts. 
She  expected  much,  though,  as  the  event  proved, 
disappointment  was  in  store  for  her. 

It  may  be  that  her  rich  imagination  had 
coloured  that  letter  in  which  she  told  Schlegel 
that  Benjamin  wrote  "more  passionately  than 
when  he  loved  me  most."  It  may  be,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  Benjamin's  expressions  exceeded 
the  ardour  of  his  inward  feelings.  The  Diary,  at 
all  events,  expresses  no  joy  at  the  meeting,  but  indi- 
cates rather  that,  in  so  far  as  he  loves  her  at  all, 
it  is  not  for  her  own  sake  but  for  her  daughter's. 

"  I  dine  with  Don  Pedro,  and  attend  a  recep- 
tion at  the  great  Chancellor's.  Madame  de  Stael 
arrives.  I  go  to  see  her,  and  find  her  altered, 
pale,  and  thin.  The  interview  passed  without 
any  display  of  emotion.  Albertine  is  charming — 
as  bright  and  clever  as  can  be.  How  I  wish  that 
I  could  pass  my  life  with  her ! " 

And  then  again  : — 

"  Dinner  at  G^rando's  with  Ancillon,  a  man  of 
wit.  Pass  the  evening  at  Madame  de  Stael's. 
She  is  altogether  changed,  absent-minded,  almost 
Stiff  in  her  manner,  thinking  only  of  herself, 
listening  little,  and  interesting  herself  in  nothing," 

In  the  letters,  too,  we  find  the  same  note  sounded. 
"  My  relations,  if  relations  I  have,  with  Madame 
de  Stael,"  he  tells  his  cousin  Rosalie,  "are  more 
than  simple.     I  pass  weeks  without  ever  seeing 

298 


The  Little  Rift  within  the  Lute 

her  alone,  and  days  without  seeing  her  at  all." 
And  in  another  letter  to  the  same  cousin  we  find 
this  remarkable  passage  : — 

"  Madame  de  Stael  is  living,  as  you  know,  in 
a  country  house  near  Paris.  As  she  is  at  a 
distance  from  me,  I  see  her  less  than  if  she  were 
at  Paris.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  her  charm  and 
her  celebrity  attract  to  her  house  all  the  dis- 
tinguished strangers,  both  men  and  women,  who 
are  here.  But  a  decline  of  one's  interest  affects 
one  very  much  in  the  same  way  as  a  diminution 
of  one's  fortune.  A  man  who  would  think  an 
income  of  a  thousand  crowns  wealth  if  he  were 
penniless,  regards  it  as  poverty  if  he  has  had  an 
income  of  ten  thousand  crowns  in  his  time. 
Similarly  those  who  have  once  been  lovers  relapse 
into  mutual  indifference  when  their  affection  for 
each  other  is  only  like  that  which  they  feel  for 
people  in  general.  Besides,  I  am  a  little  angry 
with  her,  for  I  cannot  speak  to  any  woman  in 
Paris  without  her  spreading  the  report  that  I  am 
in  love — which  is  ridiculous  at  my  age,  and  an 
inconvenience  to  me  in  my  public  position." 

There,  clearly,  is  the  little  rift  within  the  lute. 
Widening,  it  does  not,  unhappily,  make  the 
music  mute,  but  imparts  to  it  a  harsh  and  grating 
sound.  To  indifference  there  succeeds  an  open 
quarrel — a  very  ugly  quarrel  about  money  matters. 
There  was  a  time,  as  has  been  related,  when 
Madame  de  Stael  deliberately  lent  money  to 
Benjamin  Constant,  in  order  to  make  it  difficult 
for  him  to  break  off  his  relations  with  her.     When 

299 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

he  wanted  to  repay  her,  she  refused  to  accept 
repayment,  and  would  not  even  help  him  in  fixing 
the  amount  of  the  debt.  The  settlement  at 
which  they  finally  arrived  was  only  the  result  of 
his  unflinching  insistence.  He  practically  forced 
upon  her  a  mortgage  on  some  of  his  property, 
repayable,  together  with  whatever  interest  should 
have  accrued,  out  of  his  estate,  at  his  death.  But 
now,  of  a  sudden,  we  see  Madame  de  Stael  trying 
to  upset  that  settlement  and  demanding  cash. 

Her  letters  demanding  the  cash  are  included  in 
the  Critic's  collection ;  and  it  is  very  painful  to 
read  them.  The  woman  who  of  old  had  loved — 
and  perhaps  still  longed  to  love — takes  in  them 
the  tone  of  an  indignant  dun.  Benjamin's  con- 
duct, she  declares,  "  passes  all  that  I  believed  of 
the  human  heart."  "  What  a  man  ! "  she  exclaims. 
*'  A  man  capable  of  a  cowardice  which  is  worse 
than  a  theft !  "  She  will  only  communicate  with 
him  through  the  medium  of  her  solicitor;  pro- 
ceedings shall  be  instantly  begun. 

And  so  forth.  It  is  a  dispute  for  which  one 
instinctively  seeks  a  motive  other  than  pecuniary, 
and  the  key  to  the  mystery  is  the  complaint  to 
Rosalie  that  Madame  de  Stael  cannot  see  Ben- 
jamin speak  to  another  woman  without  spreading 
the  report  that  he  is  in  love  with  her.  The 
report  was  not  only  circulated ;  it  was  a  true 
report.  Benjamin  was  in  love — head  over  ears 
in  love — with  Madame  de  Stael's  bosom  friend, 
Madame  R^camier.     Hinc  illce  lacrimce. 


FHTW-^n 


Madame  df^  Stnt  Her  Love; 


to  accept. 

"  'n  fixing 

^nt    at 

U  of 


suciden,  we  see  M 
■■-.-.,  -  "'"lent' and  uc-ii  .uiuin;^  v... 
i\r.c  the  cash  are  incli 
the  Critic's  ccllt  >^      ,_Js  very  painful  to 

,    ,  MADAME   RECAMIErt       ,  ,  f    V\  , 

read  therr  ^       d  had  loved — 

From  a  Paiuting  by  Francois  Gerard  . 

and  per:-  ;  ;  jn^ou  -.-j  luvc — takes  in  them 

t,     «*'*'^^'"».fi«wtif^«ant  dun.     Benjamin's  cciv 

he  declares,   "  passes  all  that  I  believed  of 

' '  What  a  man  ! "  she  exclaimsj 


m  of  her 
instantly  begun. 

Jiv-i' 

■x  to 
e  Ben- 
eading 
.     The 

repori 
report. 
in  love — 

ae  de 

was  a  true 

oad  over  ears 

om  friend, 

300 

CHAPTER   XXVI 

Benjamin  Constant  in  love  with  Madame  Recamier — His  account 
of  the  passion  in  his  Diary — Finding  that  he  loves  in  vain,  he 
rejoins  his  wife. 

Napoleon's  sister,  Caroline,  Queen  of  Naples, 
had  asked  Madame  Recamier  to  find  a  good 
journalist  who  would  write  a  pamphlet  setting 
forth  her  husband's  claims  to  consideration  in 
that  rearrangement  of  the  map  of  Europe  which 
the  Allies  were  negotiating  at  Vienna.  Madame 
Recamier  at  once  thought  of  Benjamin  Constant, 
whose  pamphlet  against  the  Emperor  had  made 
a  great  stir ;  and  as  Benjamin  Constant  was  no 
ordinary  journalist  to  be  hired  or  bought,  she 
flirted  with  him.  For  a  season  he  was  at  least 
allowed  to  call  her  Juliette  and  to  write  to  her 
several  times  a  day ;  and  for  the  sake  of  those 
privileges,  and  in  the  hope  of  others  which  he 
did  not  obtain,  he  duly  composed  the  pamphlet, 
and  even  returned  the  proffered  fee  of  20,000 
francs.  We  have  only  to  look  at  the  Diary  to 
see  how  suddenly  the  passion  seized  him. 

'*  I  pass  the  evening  with  Madame  Recamier, 
and  this  woman,  by  whose  side  I  lived  in 
Switzerland,  and  whom  I  have  seen  so  often  and 
in  so  many  circumstances  without  her  making  the 

301 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

faintest  impression  upon  me,  now,  all  of  a  sudden, 
inspires  me  with  violent  sentiments.  Am  I  mad, 
or  only  silly  ?  But  the  feeling,  I  hope,  will  pass 
away." 

"  Alas !  The  feeling  does  not  pass  away ;  the 
passionate  fever  which  is  only  too  familiar  to  me, 
has  invaded  my  heart  and  obtained  complete 
dominion  over  it  It  is  all  up  with  work,  with 
politics,  with  literature.  The  reign  of  Juliette 
begins.  It  is  a  circumstance  apparently  of  the 
most  trivial  character  that  has  thrown  me  into 
this  irresistible  whirlwind  of  the  heart  and  mind 
— ^a  matter  of  advice  to  be  given,  and  something 
to  be  written  for  the  Murats,  who  have  asked 
Juliette  (who  is  under  obligations  to  them)  to 
apply  to  me.  Her  desire  to  do  what  they  want, 
the  seductions  which  she  has  thought  it  her  duty 
to  employ,  and  the  confidential  conferences  thus 
necessitated,  have  turned  my  head.  I  feel  that  it 
is  so.  And  yet  I  am  aware  of  the  danger  to 
which  I  am  exposing  myself,  for  I  have  to  do 
with  an  avowed  coquette.  But  the  fascination 
of  the  difl&culty  to  be  overcome  leads  me  on." 

"  My  life  is  a  torment  through  the  inconceivable 
agitation  into  which  this  woman  throws  me.  It 
is  making  me  grow  old  before  my  time.  I  pay 
calls  here  and  there,  etc.  Any  device  is  good 
for  killing  time ;  my  blood  is  at  fever  heat  I 
have  seen  her  alone.  Never  was  her  manner 
more  coquettish — that  is  her  charm.  It  is  im- 
possible for  me  to  tell  whether  I  have  made  the 
slightest  progress  in  her  heart ;  she  does  not 
even  seem  to  be  sorry  for  me.     This  evening, 

302 


Madame  R^camier's  Flirtation 

after  she  had  given  me  an  appointment  and 
failed  to  keep  it,  I  almost  choked  to  see  how  little 
regret  she  showed.  I  had  to  leave  her,  and 
I  fell  into  convulsions  in  my  suffering  and  my 
passionate  desire. 

**What  has  become  of  you,  peaceful  life  of 
Gottingen  ?  " 

"  I  wanted  to  make  her  uneasy  by  my  absence ; 
but  I  could  not  resist  her,  and  I  went  to  see  her. 
I  perceive  that  she  becomes  every  day  more  cold 
and  more  reasonable.  She  inspires  me  with 
horror.  I  would  never  see  her  again  if  I  thought 
that  that  would  trouble  her.  I  would  give  ten 
years  of  my  life  to  make  her  suffer  the  half  of 
what  I  am  suffering." 

To  despair  succeeds  exaltation,  in  spite  of 
Benjamin's  discovery  that  he  has  a  rival. 

"  She  gave  me  an  appointment,  and  I  ran  to 
keep  it.  My  sufferings  moved  her.  She  promised 
that  she  would  often  see  me  alone,  and  that  she 
would  listen  to  me.  She  spoke  to  me  affectionately 
of  my  interests  and  my  career.  Nevertheless, 
she  made  herself  so  agreeable,  in  my  presence, 
with  M.  de  Forbin,^  that  I  had  to  seek  an  inter- 
view with  him  afterwards  and  arrange  that  we 
will  fight  to-morrow." 

"What  with  Juliette's  distress,  and  her  tender 
promises  on  condition  that  I  do  not  fight,  and 
the  efforts  of  the  seconds,  the  matter  is  arranged, 

^  An  imigri  who  had  fought  against  his  country,  and  was  pre- 
sently to  be  made  a  peer  of  France.  He  and  Benjamin  Constant 
fought  a  duel,  as  the  result  of  some  press  polemics,  in  1822. 

303 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

though  we  are  both  resolved  to  assail  each  other 
again  on  the  smallest  ground  of  offence." 

"  I  saw  her  again  to-day.  Please  God,  I  will 
not  boast.  I  am  too  much  afraid  of  some  sledge- 
hammer blow.  But  I  do  believe  that  I  have 
made  a  little  progress.  She  believed  that  I  was 
leaving  her,  and  had  written  to  complain.  She 
admits  that  I  love  more  passionately  than  anyone, 
and  only  doubts  the  durability  of  my  attachment. 
She  almost  confessed  to  a  fear  that  it  would  not 
last  long." 

The  attachment,  at  any  rate,  lasted  longer 
than  the  lady's  preferential  smiles,  for  the  next 
entry  is : — 

"  My  stars !  I  give  it  up.  She  has  made  me 
pass  a  diabolical  day.  She  is  an  empty-headed 
bird,  a  cloud,  without  memory,  without  dis- 
crimination, without  preferences.  Her  beauty 
having  made  her  the  object  of  continual  homage, 
the  romantic  language  to  which  she  has  listened 
has  given  her  an  appearance  of  sensibility  which 
is  only  skin  deep.  I  never  find  her  in  the 
morning  the  same  person  to  whom  I  said  good- 
night the  evening  before.  Her  memory  is  so 
defective  that  the  pleasure  which  she  has  derived 
from  one  intimate  tete-a-tete  never  suggests  to  her 
that  she  should  seek  an  opportunity  for  another. 
She  is  as  kind  to  everybody  as  she  is  to  me. 

"  After  this  attack  of  despair  and  anger  I  calmed 
down,  and,  finding  Forbin  with  her  in  the 
evening,  I  opened  my  heart  to  Juliette  in  his 
presence.  This  established  confidential  relations 
between  the  two  aspirants  to  her  favours.     We 

304 


A  Strange  Confidante 

both  proceeded  to  picture  our  love  to  her — with 
the  result  that  I  ended  by  bursting  into  a  mad 
fit  of  laughter. 

"  I  must  have  done  with  it,  and  the  sooner  the 
better." 

So  Benjamin  tried  to  argue  himself  out  of  his 
mad  passion,  and  selected  a  strange  confidante 
to  help  him. 

"  Thinking  that  I  might  detach  myself  from 
Juliette  by  a  cold  process  of  reasoning,  I  told  the 
whole  story  of  my  mad  passion  to  Albertine, 
though  without  mentioning  the  lady's  name.  I 
admit  that  this  was  absurd,  and  that  I  was  wrong. 
Will  that  cure  my  foolishness,  and  shall  I  continue 
occupations  so  shamelessly  puerile  for  a  man 
like  me?  But  alas!  she  holds  my  heart  in  her 
claws,  and  never  was  madness  more  inopportune." 

It  was  inopportune  because  Benjamin's  political 
writings  were  attracting  a  great  deal  of  notice. 
Distinction  was  in  store  for  him  if  he  chose  to 
have  it,  as  was  made  clear  to  him  by  the  compli- 
ments paid  to  him  whenever  he  dined  out.  On 
the  other  hand,  Juliette  was  making  it  clear  that 
she  intended  to  offer  him  nothing  more  serious 
than  her  friendship.  The  next  passages  in  the 
Diary  show  that  conclusion  demonstrated  to  him. 

'*  It  seems  silly  to  venture  nothing  with  a  woman 
with  whom  one  is  very  much  in  love,  and  with 
whom  one  is  often  tete-^-tete  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning.     I  must  persevere." 
u  305 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  I  have  an  appointment  with  Juliette  for  this 
evening,  and  I  prepare  a  written  composition  in 
order  to  arouse  her  emotions.  It  was  a  success. 
She  was  really  moved ;  there  was  more  abandon 
in  her  manner  than  ever.  And  yet  I  got  nothing 
for  my  pains.  There  is  a  barrier  there  which  I 
perceive,  and  which  paralyses  my  endeavours." 

"It  is  all  over.  Beneath  her  manner  there  is 
nothing  but  the  most  complete  indifference. 
Love  is  not  to  be  looked  for  ?  Friendship  ? 
That  is  hardly  worth  while  with  a  soul  so  dead 
as  hers.  I  must  go  away  from  her,  or  I  must 
cure  myself.  But  I  have  been  shouting  that  into 
my  ears  for  the  last  ten  months,  and  I  feel  that 
I  shall  do  neither  the  one  thing  nor  the  other." 

The  cure,  indeed,  was  not  to  be  found  yet 
awhile.  On  the  contrary,  a  fresh  gleam  of  hope 
began  to  shine  upon  the  lover.  Juliette  had  been 
cruel,  and  had  left  a  letter  unanswered,  so  that 
Benjamin  was  reduced  to  tears  and  despair. 
But  he  had  met  Madame  Krudner,  who  had 
promised  to  plead  for  him.  "Who  knows,"  he 
exclaims,  "  if  the  heart  of  Juliette  will  not  be 
opened  to  me  when  attacked  by  this  ally  ?  " 

Madame  Krudner  was,  in  truth,  a  strange 
ally  in  such  a  situation.  She  had  been  in  her 
time  a  fashionable  beauty,  a  woman  of  letters, 
and  a  frivolous  and  unfaithful  wife.  Her  novel 
Valirie  had  appeared  at  about  the  same  date  as 
Madame  de  Stael's  Delpkine,  and  had  been  only 
less  successful.     Its  theme,  like  that  of  Delpkine, 

306 


Attracted  to  Mysticism 

was  autobiographical,  and  it  confided  to  the  world 
the  author's  passionate  attachment  for  a  man  who 
was  not  her  husband.  The  frailty,  however,  no 
less  than  the  confession,  belonged  to  the  past. 
Madame  Krudner  had  found  religion,  and  was 
the  most  conspicuous  of  the  mystics  of  the 
day.  In  that  capacity  she  exerted  a  remarkable 
influence  over  the  Russian  Emperor,  who  is  said 
to  have  been  especially  amenable  to  such  influence, 
because  his  mistress  had  lately  forsaken  him  for 
his  aide-de-camp,  and  is  said  to  have  inspired  the 
idea  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  It  was  in  that  character 
also  that  she  appealed  to  Benjamin  Constant. 

Religion  had  always  interested  Benjamin.  He 
had  begun,  as  we  have  seen,  to  write  a  book 
about  religion  on  the  backs  of  playing-cards  in  the 
drawing-room  of  that  Madame  de  Charriere  whom 
he  treated  so  badly ;  and  he  continued  to  work 
at  it,  in  the  intervals  of  his  amours,  for  a  period 
of  forty  years,  adding  and  altering  almost  until 
the  day  of  his  death.  Moreover,  religion  for  him 
had  always  meant  mysticism  rather  than  moral 
obligation.  He  had  encountered  mysticism  at 
Geneva,  where  a  mystic  missionary  was  once 
brought  before  the  magistrates  and  charged  with 
paying  excessive  attentions  to  the  ladies  of  his 
congregation,  "under  the  pretence  that  he  was 
inspired  by  God."  At  Lausanne  the  Chevalier 
de  Langallerie  had  almost  persuaded  him  to 
become  a  mystic.  So  that  the  ground  was  well 
prepared,  and  we  read  without  surprise  : — 

307 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  Madame  de  Krudner  sent  for  me.  Her  con- 
versation did  me  good.  She  was  adorable  in  her 
compassion  for  the  love  which  tortures  me,  and 
promised  her  help  in  linking  Juliette's  soul  with 
mine.  At  the  same  time  she  gave  me  a  manu- 
script for  Juliette.  I  read  it.  There  are  no  new 
ideas  in  it,  but  it  is  touchingly  true,  and  some  of 
the  passages  penetrated  to  the  depths  of  my  soul. 
There,  yes,  there  lies  truth.  I  feel  that  it  is 
so.  All  my  passionate  sentiments  are  subdued. 
O  powerful  and  good  God,  complete  my  cure." 

"  Madame  de  Krudner  gave  me  a  prayer  to 
write  out,  and  it  made  me  melt  into  tears.  What 
an  amount  of  good  that  woman's  influence  does 
me!  I  saw  Juliette  again,  and  was  gentle  and 
calm,  but  I  fancy  she  is  not  very  prone  to  religious 
ideas.  She  loses  herself  altogether  in  the  coquetry 
which  she  makes  it  her  business  to  practise, 
and  in  her  pleasure  or  distress  at  the  pain  which 
she  causes  the  three  or  four  aspirants  surround- 
ing her.  Finally  she  is  willing  to  do  a  little 
good  when  it  is  not  too  much  trouble,  and  sets 
the  mass  above  everything,  sighing  sighs  which 
she  believes  come  from  her  soul,  though  their  real 
meaning  is  that  she  is  bored." 

"  I  have  seen  Juliette  again,  and — miracle  of 
miracles — she  wants  to  find  religion.  Madame 
de  Krudner  triumphs,  and  hopes  to  succeed  in 
uniting  us  spiritually.     I  prayed  with  Juliette." 

A  good  beginning,  but  quickly  followed  by  dis- 
appointment Neither  love  nor  religion  fulfilled 
the  high  expectations  thus  hastily  formed  of  them. 
First  it  is  the  collapse  of  religion  that  is  noted. 

308 


Collapse  of  Religion  and  of  Love 

'*  Spent  the  evening  with  Madame  de  Krudner. 
There  are  certainly  some  good  things  among 
these  people's  beliefs  and  ideas,  but  they  go  too 
far  with  their  miracles  and  their  descriptions  of 
Paradise,  of  which  they  speak  as  they  might  of 
their  own  bedrooms." 

And  then  we  read  of  the  collapse  of  love. 

"  Alas !  Madame  de  Krudner  was  not  a  true 
prophet,  for  Juliette  has  never  treated  me  more 
shamefully.  Yesterday  she  made  four  appoint- 
ments with  me,  and  did  not  keep  any  of  them ; 
and,  in  the  evening,  I  found  her  the  ne  plus  ultra 
of  coquetry,  perfidy,  lying,  and  hypocrisy.  But 
Madame  de  Krudner  has  given  me  strength  to 
bear  that  and  to  calm  myself.  It  is  much.  I  will 
once  more  become  a  serious  man,  recover  my 
strength  of  mind,  and  resume  my  pen.  I  feel 
that,  and  I  wish  it." 

The  end  is  assuredly  near,  if  it  has  not  actually 
come,  when  a  lover  can  write  like  that ;  but  the 
severest  blow  to  Benjamin's  passion  must  have 
been  that  struck  during  the  Hundred  Days.  He 
was  one  of  the  last  of  the  champions  of  the  Bour- 
bons who  remained  at  Paris  to  defy  the  Corsican 
— "this  cunning  half-barbarian,"  as  he  called  him. 
He  was  still  insulting  the  Emperor  in  xh^  Journal 
des  Ddbdts  after  his  arrival  at  Fontainebleau ; 
and  he  has  left  it  on  record  that  he  did  so  for  no 
other  reason  than  to  please  Madame  R^camier. 
But  Madame  Rdcamier  was  still  unkind. 

"How  beautiful  you  looked,  standing  before 
309 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

your  door,"  he  wrote  to  her,  "  like  a  white  angel 
ascending  to  heaven,  and  illuminating  with  celestial 
splendour  the  darkness  of  the  earth.  But,"  he 
added,  "  angels  have  a  heart.  They  love,  and  it 
touches  them  to  be  loved."  And  then,  having 
written  that,  he  abandoned  his  plans  for  flight 
to  America,  accepted  the  overtures  that  were 
made  to  him,  and  gave  in  his  allegiance  to 
Napoleon,  who  nominated  him  Councillor  of 
State.  "  My  love  persists,"  he  writes  ;  and  the 
correspondence  certainly  persisted.  Letters  were 
still  being  exchanged  for  some  time  after  the 
Waterloo  dibdcle ;  but  they  grew  less  frequent 
and  more  formal.  Such  affection  as  Madame 
R^camier  had  bestowed  upon  Benjamin  Constant 
was  transferred  to  others,  and  ultimately  to  Chateau- 
briand ;  and  Benjamin,  on  his  part,  ceasing  to  be 
afflicted,  went  to  Brussels  to  meet  his  wife. 

Madame  Constant  had  travelled  150  leagues  in 
mid-winter  on  "frightful  roads"  to  join  him. 
Informing  Madame  Recamier  of  her  arrival,  her 
husband  adds,  as  it  were,  a  testimonial  to  her 
merits  :  "  She  is  an  excellent  person,  with  a  very 
loving  heart,  a  very  noble  soul,  and  an  integrity 
of  character  and  an  honesty  which  are  my  admira- 
tion." Then,  changing  the  subject,  he  proceeds 
to  retrospects  and  reproaches  :  "  When  I  consider 
how  little  advantage  women  have  derived  from 
loving  me,  I  think  you  were  very  wise  not  to  do 
so  ;  though  I  would  congratulate  you  more  warmly 
if  it  had  cost  you  a  greater  effort  to  refrain.     The 

310 


An  Interesting  Forecast 

only  wrong  that  you  have  done  me  was  to  desire 
that  I  should  love  you — a  weakness  that  lasted 
five  days.  I  can  speak  to  you  on  the  subject 
without  bitterness  because  the  pain  is  past." 

It  had  not  passed,  however,  without  leaving 
traces  behind.  The  correspondence  did  not  cease  ; 
it  did  not  even  cease  to  be  frequent.  From 
London,  where  Benjamin  and  Charlotte  spent 
several  months  after  leaving  Brussels,  letters 
continued  to  be  despatched,  relating  ostensibly 
to  various  little  matters  of  business,  but  couched 
in  language  unusual  in  business  communications. 
The  most  interesting  passage  is  the  writer's  fore- 
cast— so  soon  to  be  belied — of  the  life  that  he 
will  live  on  his  return  to  Paris.  "  I  shall  work 
there,"  he  declares,  "at  matters  quite  unconnected 
with  politics.  I  shall  not  go  into  Society,  for  I 
hate  it ;  and  I  shall  await  the  end  of  a  life  which 
promises  me  no  further  satisfaction,  but  which  I 
should  like  to  finish  in  tranquillity,  far  removed 
from  strangers,  giving  to  the  person  whose  destiny 
I  have  taken  in  charge,  and  who  is  an  angel  in 
her  affection  and  her  goodness,  a  happiness  which 
I  shall  try  to  pretend  to  share." 


311 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

The  Constants  in  London — The  publication  oiAdoiphe — The  place 
of  Adoiphe  in  French  literature. 

Benjamin  Constant  was  well  received  in  London, 
though  some  of  the  leaders  of  English  Society 
declined  the  acquaintance  of  Madame  Constant  on 
account  of  her  double  divorce.  Very  likely  that 
was  one  of  the  reasons  why  she  complained,  as 
she  repeatedly  did,  that  the  English  climate  was 
unsuitable  for  her  health.  The  Diary  notes  that 
her  **  equivocal  position  "  was  a  cause  of  embarrass- 
ment and  annoyance.  No  details  are  given, 
however,  and  that  branch  of  the  subject  may  be 
passed  over.     A  more  interesting  entry  is  this  : — 

**  I  have  read  my  novel  to  various  friends.  It 
has  a  great  success.  I  am  going  to  have  it 
printed.  They  are  giving  me  seventy  louis 
for  it." 

The  reference  was,  of  course,  to  Adolphe — 
the  romance,  written  in  1807,  in  which  the  author 
had  promised  himself  that  he  would  tell  the  story 
of  his  life.  He  finished  it,  the  Diary  tells  us,  in 
a  fortnight ;  and  it  does  not  appear  that  he  had, 
at  the  time,  any  thought  of  publishing  it.  He 
acquired,  however,  the  habit  of  reading  it  aloud 

312 


Adolphe  a  Great  Success 

to  his  friends,  much  as  Rousseau  used  to  read 
aloud  extracts  from  the  Confessions ;  and  the 
habit  grew  upon  him.  The  Hsteners  generally 
wept. 

At  the  particular  reading  to  which  the  Diary 
alludes  Miss  Berry  was  present,  and  her  account 
of  the  incident  is  as  follows  : — 

"In  the  evening  at  the  Bourkes,  where  there 
had  been  a  dinner.  Lady  Holland,  Madame  de 
Lieven,  etc.,  and  where  Benjamin  Constant  read 
his  romance,  or  history ;  I  do  not  know  what  to 
call  it,  as  he  has  not  given  it  a  name.  It  is  very 
well  written — a  sad  and  much  too  true  history 
of  the  human  heart,  but  almost  ridiculously  so 
with  the  company  before  whom  it  was  read.  It 
lasted  two  hours  and  a  half.  The  end  was  so 
touching  that  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  restrain 
one's  tears,  and  the  effort  I  made  to  do  so  made 
me  positively  ill.  Agnes  and  I  both  burst  into 
tears  on  our  return  home." 

That  was  the  effect  on  an  English  audience, 
and  we  learn  from  the  Due  de  Broglie  that  the 
effect  on  a  French  audience  was  similar. 

The  Duke,  be  it  remarked,  was  not  a  friendly 
witness.  He  had  a  poor  opinion  of  the  novel, 
and  he  did  not  like  the  novelist — for  reasons 
which  are  obvious  though  he  does  not  mention 
them.  He  was  in  love  with,  and  about  to  marry, 
Albertine  de  Stael ;  and  Adolphe  was  therefore, 
from  his  point  of  view,  a  work  which  exposed 
a  skeleton  in  the  cupboard  of  the  family  which 

313 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

he  proposed  to  enter.  Its  author  seemed  to  be 
confessing — or  perhaps  to  be  boasting — that  he 
had  loved,  and  had  tired  of,  the  lady  who  was 
to  be  the  mother-in-law  of  the  head  of  one  of 
the  historic  houses  of  France.  He  knew — for  it 
was  notorious — that  the  confession  was  founded 
upon  fact.  It  was  a  condition  of  things  which 
offended  his  dignity  as  well  as  his  moral  sense 
both  before  his  marriage  and  afterwards.  Looking 
backwards,  in  later  years,  he  ignored  what  he 
could  of  the  story,  and  took  such  revenge  as  was 
possible  on  Benjamin  Constant,  by  holding  him 
up  to  ridicule  and  contempt. 

Benjamin's  relations  with  Madame  Recamier 
and  Madame  Krudner  gave  him  his  opportunity. 
He  drew  a  graphic  picture  of  the  aspirant  to 
the  favours  of  the  coquette  spending  his  nights 
in  the  salon  of  the  mystic,  "  sometimes  upon  his 
knees  engaged  in  prayer,  and  sometimes  extended 
in  ecstasy  upon  the  carpet"  He  added  that 
Benjamin  was  even  anxious  to  enter  into  a  com- 
pact with  the  Devil  in  order  to  obtain  the 
privileges  which  he  had  vainly  supplicated  God 
to  grant.  He  deplores  the  bad  taste  of  Adolphe, 
and  declares  that  its  effect  upon  French  literature 
has  been  that  of  a  taint  or  an  infection.  But  he 
admits  that,  when  the  author  read  it  aloud  in 
Madame  R6camier's  drawing-room,  the  listeners 
were  impressed. 

"There  were,"  he  writes,  "twelve  or  fifteen 
of  us  present.     The  reading  lasted  nearly  three 

314 


Curiosity  Stimulated 

hours.  The  author  was  tired.  As  he  approached 
the  denouement,  his  emotion  increased,  and  his 
fatigue  augmented  his  emotion.  At  last  he 
could  no  longer  contain  himself,  but  burst  into 
sobs.  The  contagion  affected  the  whole  assembly, 
already  itself  much  moved,  and  tears  and  groans 
prevailed.  Then,  suddenly,  by  one  of  those 
rapid  transitions  which,  if  we  may  believe  the 
doctors,  are  not  of  rare  occurrence,  the  sobs, 
having  become  convulsive,  turned  to  nervous 
and  irresistible  bursts  of  laughter ;  so  that,  if 
anyone  had  entered  at  that  moment,  and  surprised 
the  author  and  his  listeners  in  that  condition,  he 
would  have  been  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  think, 
or  how  to  explain  the  effect  by  the  cause." 

A  romance  which  produced  this  sort  of  success 
when  read  aloud  could  hardly  fail  to  attract 
attention  when  printed ;  while  the  curiosity  of 
the  curious  was  further  stimulated  by  the  question 
whether  it  should  or  should  not  be  read  as  a 
roman-a-clef.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  the 
author  meant  the  world  to  think ;  but  we  know 
what  he  thought  his  acquaintances  were  likely 
to  think,  from  two  passages  in  letters  to  Madame 
R^camier. 

In  June  1816  he  professes  to  regret  the 
publication.  "I  never,"  he  writes,  "see  the 
inconvenience  of  any  course  which  I  adopt  until 
after  I  have  adopted  it.  I  am  afraid  that  a 
person  to  whom  it  does  not  really  bear  the  most 
distant  application,  whether  as  regards  her  position 
or  her  character,  may  be  hurt.     But  it  is  too  late." 

31S 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

In  October  of  the  same  year  he  reports,  with 
apparent  satisfaction :  "  Adolphe  has  not  caused 
any  quarrel  with  the  person  whose  unjust  sus- 
ceptibility I  feared.  She  has,  on  the  contrary, 
seen  my  desire  to  avoid  any  allusion  that  might 
annoy  her.  I  am  told  that  another  person  is 
furious.  That  woman  is  very  vain.  I  was  not 
thinking  of  her  at  all." 

The  explanation  of  the  allusions,  supposing 
them  to  need  any,  may  be  found  in  the  letters 
which  passed  on  the  subject  between  Charles 
and  Rosalie  de  Constant.  It  is  Charles  who 
writes  first. 

"In  reading  Adolphe,  my  dear  Rose,  you  will 
have  observed  that  Benjamin  explains  his  conduct 
by  depreciating  his  character;  and,  as  someone 
used  to  say,  he  wished  to  make  it  known  that  his 
private  life  was  governed  by  the  same  principles 
as  his  public  career.  He  has  caused  the  English 
papers  to  insert  the  statement  that  the  characters 
in  his  novel  are  not  portraits  of  persons  whom 
anybody  knows ;  but  those  who  have  known 
both  him  and  her  will  not  be  deceived  by  this 
declaration.  Several  of  his  readers  will  have 
known  ElMnore ;  her  name  was  Lindsay.  She 
was  a  young  woman,  agreeable  in  company,  half 
French  half  English,  brought  to  live  in  con- 
cubinage by  the  machinations  of  adventurers. 
She  had  intelligence,  but  no  education.  Her 
adventures  with  Benjamin  made  a  good  deal  of 
talk  in  their  time.  The  lady  of  Coppet  has  no 
place  in  this   masterpiece.      To  sell  oneself  for 

316 


Rosalie  de  Constant's  Criticism 

money  seems  to  me  the  depths  of  degradation, 
and  I  am  the  less  ready  to  forgive  him  for  that 
than  I  should  be  if  he  had  acted  in  pure  cynicism. 
This  book,  my  dear  Rose,  causes  me  real 
annoyance.  I  cannot  rid  myself  of  a  feeling  of 
attachment  to  my  relatives — especially  to  those 
with  whom  I  have  been  on  intimate  terms. 
Benjamin's  wit  and  talents  might  have  shed 
lustre  on  us  all.  He  now  covers  us  with  mud 
and  shame." 

Rosalie  replies  at  length  in  a  letter  which 
constitutes  one  of  the  best  criticisms  ever  written 
alike  of  the  book  and  of  its  author. 

"You  are  right.  Adolphe  caused  me  real  pain. 
It  made  me  feel  again  something  of  the  suffering 
which  the  story  on  which  it  is  founded  caused  me. 
The  situation  is  so  well  depicted  that  I  fancied 
myself  carried  back  to  the  time  when  I  was  the 
witness  of  an  unworthy  servitude,  and  of  a  weak- 
ness based  upon  a  noble  sentiment.  It  is  not  her, 
except  in  the  respect  of  her  tyranny.  But  it  is 
him ;  and  I  can  quite  understand  that,  after 
having  been  so  often  dragged  into  prominence, 
so  diversely  judged,  and  so  often  in  contradiction 
with  himself,  he  has  found  some  satisfaction  in 
explaining  himself,  and  in  pointing  out  the  causes 
of  his  errors  and  the  motives  of  his  actions  in  a 
relation  which  has  so  powerfully  influenced  his 
life.  But  I  would  rather  that  he  had  not 
published  the  explanation.  The  story  is  sad, 
and  inspires  only  painful  sentiments  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.  Where  the  material 
truth  is  altered,  ideal  truth  suffers.     I    find   the 

317 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

end  specially  painful :  the  consequences  are  dis- 
couraging. Poor  Benjamin !  I  believe  him  to 
be  one  of  the  most  unhappy  men  in  the  world. 
His  mind  works  with  such  exactitude  that  it 
shows  him  every  side  of  every  question  and  all 
the  consequences  of  all  the  errors  into  which 
enthusiasm  or  weakness  lead  him.  Every  year 
I  hope  that  what  is  good  and  great  in  his  nature 
will  gain  the  upper  hand,  and  place  him  in  the 
position  which  he  ought  to  occupy  ;  every  year 
he  causes  me  fresh  grief  and  disappointment. 
But  I  will  not  hate  him  for  faults  which  do  no 
harm  to  anyone  but  himself,  and  are  never 
inspired  by  bad  intentions ;  I  shall  consider 
that  I  owe  him  that  share  of  friendship  of 
which  you  deprived  him  so  long  ago  with  so 
much  severity.  .  .  .  Perhaps  if  you  had  remained 
his  friend,  that  would  have  checked  a  good  many 
of  his  faults.  In  the  days  of  the  terrible  scenes 
I  often  used  to  think  :  '  If  he  had  a  real  friend — if 
Charles  were  here — he  might  be  able  to  withdraw 
from  this  unworthy  position.'  ...  In  the  novel 
you  do  not  appear  to  perceive  any  of  the  beauties 
of  thought  and  style  with  which  it  is  replete. 
I  think  there  are  few  novels  more  profoundly 
moral,  or  better  demonstrating  the  power  of 
education.  What  might  he  not  have  come  to 
if  his  own  education  had  been  directed  by  a 
Christian  father  and  mother!  How  easy  it  was 
to  arouse  him  to  an  enthusiasm  for  good,  to 
orderly  habits,  and  even  a  passion  for  order! 
How  many  truths  women  can  learn  in  his  book 
concerning  the  part  played  by  imagination  in 
the  passions,  concerning  their  empire  over  their 
lovers,  and  on  the  manner  in  which  their  tender- 

318 


opinion  of  Charles  de  Constant 

ness  increases  while  that  of  men  diminishes.  I 
beg  you  to  read  it  again  without  thinking  of 
Benjamin.  You  will  see  how  full  it  is  of  acute 
and  just  remarks.  .  .  . 

"  You  must  understand  that  the  Lindsay  story 
was  invented  from  beginning  to  end  at  Coppet. 
He  had  not  time  in  his  life  to  be  influenced  by  two 
women  as  he  was  by  one.  But  at  least  he  has  not 
done  her  the  wrong  of  introducing  her  personality 
into  his  story ;  for  Ell^nore  is  not  in  the  least  like 
the  lady  of  Coppet,  who  has  much  more  ludicrous 
displays  of  devotion  at  her  command.  .  .  ." 

To  which  Charles  rejoins  : — 

'*  With  you,  my  dear  Rose,  I  thought  I  might 
express  myself  freely.  What  you  tell  me  proves 
that  I  was  wrong.  Your  determination  to  defend 
him  will  not  allow  me  to  open  my  heart  and  tell 
you  all  that  I  think ;  so  let  us  say  no  more  about 
it.  Only  I  swear  to  you  that  everybody  mentioned 
Madame  Lindsay  in  this  connection  before  the 
arrival  of  Madame  de  Stael,  whom  I  have  only 
seen  at  Lady  Hamilton's.  I  am  told,  too,  that 
the  death  of  ElMnore  is  that  of  a  Madame  Talma 
to  whom  he  was  much  attached.  You  are  pro- 
foundly ignorant  of  your  cousin's  adventures. 
Not  that  he  made  any  secret  of  them,  but  that 
we  have  had  the  discretion  not  to  tell  you." 

What,  then,  is  the  truth?  It  is,  of  course,  as 
the  shrewd  Sismondi  divined,  that  the  author  had 
deliberately  tried  to  throw  his  readers  off  the 
track.  So  far  as  externals  went,  Mrs.  Lindsay 
was   indubitably   his   model ;    but   the   emotions 

319 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

which  he  analysed  were  the  emotions  which 
Madame  de  Stael  had  caused  him.  And  the 
external  circumstances  of  the  story  are  of  no 
importance.  It  is  only  the  psychology  that 
counts. 

As  a  story,  indeed,  Adolphe  is  rather  badly  put 
together.  The  stage  management,  and  even  the 
stage  carpentry,  leave  much  to  be  desired ;  the 
novelists  of  our  time  are  much  better  craftsmen. 
They  know  how  to  present  a  story  in  pictures, 
whereas  he  could  only  relate  one.  His  novel 
reads  less  like  a  work  of  fiction  than  like  a  state- 
ment of  a  case  drawn  up  for  counsel's  opinion. 
But  that  does  not  matter;  or  at  all  events  it 
does  not  matter  much.  Benjamin  Constant  was 
doing  a  new  thing,  though  he  did  it  clumsily — 
plucking  his  heart  out  of  his  breast,  dissecting  it, 
and  telling  the  world,  in  the  form  of  fiction,  not 
what  he  had  observed  or  imagined,  but  what  he 
had  felt.  Not  what  he  had  felt  at  this  or  that 
moment  of  supreme  exaltation,  but  what  he  had 
felt  on  the  whole,  during  illusion,  and  after  dis- 
illusion. He  was,  in  short,  the  pioneer  of  the 
novel  of  analysed  experience — a  common  genre 
nowadays,  but  at  that  time  new  to  literature. 
He  was  fin  de  Steele,  as  the  phrase  goes,  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

And,  of  course,  analysing  candidly  and  writing 
dispassionately,  he  discovered  and  expounded  a 
new  emotional  situation,  and  broke  up  the  con- 
ventional emotional  machinery  of  novels. 

320 


A  New  Emotional  Situation 

The  conventions  which  held  the  field  when  he 
wrote  were  very  simple.  Either  you  loved  or 
you  did  not ;  but  if  you  did  love  you  loved 
tremendously — there  was  no  middle  course.  The 
great  tragedy  was  to  love  in  vain  ;  the  reasonable 
expectation  was  that  love  would  last  for  ever. 
Sometimes,  of  course,  it  happened  that  love  did 
not  last  for  ever ;  sometimes  a  man  loved  and 
rode  away.  But  a  conventional  explanation  was 
always  ready  to  hand.  Men  were  deceivers  ever ; 
women  had  been  the  victims  of  their  deceptions 
through  the  ages. 

To  have  read  Adolphe  when  saturated  with 
these  conventions  must  have  been  like  entering 
a  dark  room  with  a  guide  carrying  a  lantern,  or 
like  hearing  a  new  witness  whose  unexpected 
evidence,  abounding  in  **  new  facts,"  upsets  the 
calculations  of  the  Court.  It  is  there  shown  that 
a  love  affair  may  involve  many  other  tragedies 
besides  that  of  loving  in  vain,  and  that  a  man 
who,  according  to  the  conventions  of  fiction,  is 
merely  a  heartless  deceiver,  may  be  quite 
innocent  of  any  intention  to  give  pain,  and  may 
himself  be  the  principal  sufferer  from  the  failure 
of  his  emotions  to  answer  to  the  call  upon  them. 

The  story  is  merely  of  a  man  who  contracted  a 
liaison,  and  got  tired  of  it,  and  was  then  divided 
between  his  desire  for  freedom  and  his  sense  of 
responsibility  to  his  mistress — who  finds,  to  his 
dismay,  that  he  has  squandered  his  emotional 
substance  in  riotous  living  which  he  has  not  even 
X  321 


Madame  de   Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

enjoyed.  His  tragedy  is  the  tragedy  of  trying  to 
love  and  failing — of  fanning  a  fire  that  cannot  be 
made  to  blaze ;  the  tragedy  also  of  the  sense  of 
futility  and  wasted  effort  which  comes  to  the  lover 
whose  love  has  flickered  out,  and  who  reflects 
that  he  has  missed  what  was  perhaps  his  last 
chance  of  finding  happiness  in  love. 

One  does  not  suppose,  of  course,  that  Benjamin 
Constant  was  the  first  man  who  endured  the 
mental  as^ony  of  which  he  writes.  He  was  no 
more  the  first  than  he  was  the  last.  Love  being, 
as  even  the  earliest  novelists  knew,  the  most 
intoxicating  kind  of  happiness,  no  man  who  has 
once  tasted  it  puts  it  away  from  him  of  malice 
aforethought ;  he  is  no  more  tempted  to  do  this 
than  he  is  tempted  to  blind  or  maim  himself,  or 
destroy  any  of  his  faculties.  So  much  is  obvious  ; 
and  it  is  obvious,  too,  that  the  coeur  sensible — as 
they  said  in  those  days — must  always  have  felt 
that  there  was  tragedy  in  ceasing  to  love  no  less 
than  in  ceasing  to  be  loved,  and  have  suffered 
pain  from  the  belief,  erroneous  though  it  may 
have  been  in  many  cases,  that  the  extinction  of 
his  passion  would  make  a  woman  miserable  for 
the  remainder  of  her  days.  But  though  these 
emotions  were  not  new  to  life,  they  certainly 
were  new  to  literature.  Previous  novelists  had 
passed  them  by  —  perhaps  because  they  were 
ashamed  of  them,  perhaps  because  they  did  not 
think  that  they  would  attract  the  public. 
Benjamin    Constant    gave    them   expression    be- 

322 


Influence  on   French  Literature 

cause  he  was  writing  not  for  the  public  but  for 
himself,  and,  in  writing  for  himself,  had  no  other 
wish  than  to  tell  the  truth. 

He  had  his  reward,  though  hardly  in  his  life- 
time. It  was  his  ambition,  as  he  once  wrote  to 
Cousin  Rosalie,  to  "  leave  something  behind 
him " ;  and,  to  that  end,  he  laboured  for  several 
years  at  a  History  of  Religion  in  several  volumes. 
He  left  it,  and  its  place  is  in  the  lumber-room. 
But  he  also  left  Adolphe,  and  the  place  oi  Adolphe 
is  still  upon  the  bookshelf  on  which  we  keep  the 
books  we  read.  Not  only  is  it  frequently  re- 
printed ;  its  influence  can  also  be  traced  in  the 
works  of  many  eminent  French  writers.  The 
central  idea  of  L' Education  sentimentale  —  the 
idea  of  the  futility  of  the  philandering  which 
leads  nowhere — is  the  secondary  idea  of  Adolphe. 
The  story  of  Sapho  is  actually  the  story  of 
Adolphe,  set  in  a  new  social  environment,  and 
better  told,  by  a  better  story-teller,  with  the 
embroidery  characteristic  of  his  genius.  And 
though  Sapho  may  not  be  the  most  amusing,  or 
the  most  pathetic,  or  the  most  dramatic  of 
Alphonse  Daudet's  novels,  it  is  the  best  in  the 
sense  that  it  cuts  most  deeply  into  the  hidden 
places  of  the  human  heart. 


323 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

In  Paris — Marriage  of  Albertine  to  the  Due  de  Broglie — Trouble 
about  the  dowry — Madame  de  Stael  applies  to  Benjamin 
Constant  for  money — He  refuses  it — A  quarrel  and  a  renewal 
of  friendship. 

Madame  de  Stael  had  reached  the  autumn  of 
her  life,  but  in  the  echoes  of  her  activities  that 
still  reach  us  we  detect  no  hint  of  an  autumnal 
tone.  Even  failing  health  hardly  relaxed  her 
energies.  Her  manner  was  still  that  of  one  who 
felt  that  there  was  much  to  be  done,  and  little 
time  in  which  to  do  it ;  "  faint  but  pursuing " 
might  have  been  her  motto  at  this  stage.  She 
was  running  after  Benjamin  Constant,  whom  she 
found,  as  we  have  seen,  more  evasive  than  ever 
before ;  she  was  running  after  Necker's  millions, 
which  a  Bourbon  might  be  expected  to  repay,  if 
only  because  a  Bonaparte  had  refused  to  do  so  ; 
she  was  running  after  a  husband  for  her  daughter. 
At  the  same  time  she  was  trying  to  reconstitute 
Society  in  her  salon  in  Paris,  at  Clichy,  where  she 
spent  some  of  the  summer  months,  and  at  Coppet, 
to  which  she  paid  a  brief  visit. 

"As  for  Society,"  she  writes  to  Miss  Berry,  "it 
amounts  to  nothing,  though  a  few  remnants  of  it 
assemble  at  my  house ; "  but,  in  saying  this,  she 
did  herself  less  than  justice.     The  Due  de  Broglie 

324 


The  Leader  of  Society 

speaks  very  differently.  "  She  was  welcomed 
and  run  after,"  he  declares,  "even  at  Court  and 
by  the  Ministers,  and  humoured  in  the  Faubourg 
Saint  -  Germain  ;  her  drawing  -  room  was  the 
rendezvous  of  all  the  strangers  whom  the  Restora- 
tion brought  to  Paris."  Among  the  more  dis- 
tinguished strangers  whose  names  he  mentions 
were  Canning  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,  Lord  Harrowby,  and  Hum- 
boldt. Even  the  Russian  Emperor  paid  her  a 
visit — that  Lafayette  might  be  presented  to  him  : 
a  fact  which  she  asks  Miss  Berry  to  mention 
casually  to  her  Russian  friends,  "  in  order  that 
they  may  respect  me."  We  hear  from  other 
sources  of  receptions  at  which  she  entertained  as 
many  as  eight  hundred  guests.  The  Due  de 
Broglie,  we  gather,  did  not  think  her  extensive 
hospitality  altogether  becoming  at  the  hour  of  the 
humiliation  of  her  country ;  but  it  doubtless 
appeared  to  her  that,  wherever  Society  could  be 
gathered  together,  her  place  was  at  the  head  of  it. 
In  the  pursuit  of  the  millions,  Benjamin 
Constant  was  her  aide-de-camp.  In  his  letters  to 
Madame  Rdcamier  he  repeatedly  speaks  of  him- 
self as  "  running  "  on  her  behalf,  and  as  having  to 
prevent  or  repair  indiscretions  due  to  her  pre- 
cipitate hurry  to  be  paid.  Services  of  that 
material  kind  he  was  always  ready  to  render,  in 
order,  as  it  were,  to  compensate  her  for  his 
sentimental  slackness.  In  the  past  the  rendering 
of  them  had  sometimes  resulted  in  the  renewal  of 

325 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

the  sentiment  for  which  they  were  intended  to  be 
the  substitute.  But  that  was  no  longer  possible. 
As  Charlotte  had  intervened  in  the  past,  so 
Madame  R^camier  was  intervening  now. 

The  relation  of  the  parties  to  the  drama  was, 
indeed,  at  this  stage,  curious  and  confusing. 
Benjamin,  in  spite  of  his  new  passion,  had  not 
lost  his  affection  for  his  wife.  Several  of  the 
letters  to  Madame  R^camier  invite  pity  for  her 
sad  case.  She  is  a  great  lady,  the  husband 
declares,  in  her  own  country ;  but  if  she  is 
brought  to  Paris  there  is  a  danger  that  Society 
will  receive  her  coldly  because  of  that  double 
divorce.  That  is  his  excuse  for  leaving  her  in 
Germany  while  he  is  philandering  in  France ; 
and  he  appears  to  offer  it  in  all  sincerity.  Mean- 
while he  pays  his  court  to  Madame  R^camier  at 
Madame  de  Stael's  house ;  the  two  ladies  remain- 
ing meanwhile  upon  the  friendliest  terms,  though 
the  latter  took  it  upon  herself  to  warn  her  lover 
against  the  former. 

"You  will  come  to  no  good,"  she  told  him,  "in 
your  present  state  of  mind,  whatever  the  cause 
of  it  may  be.  You  offend  everybody  by  not 
listening  to  what  people  say,  and  not  answering 
when  you  are  spoken  to,  and  refusing  to  be 
interested  in  anything  that  anybody  says  to  you. 
You  soon  will  not  have  a  friend  left  if  you  go  on 
like  this.  I,  for  my  part,  have  ceased  to  care  for 
you.  Your  wife  will  also  quarrel  with  you  ;  and 
if  it  is  love  that  accounts  for   your  condition,   I 

326 


Madame  Rdcamier  s  Coquetry 

assure  you  that  the  person  with  whom  you  are  in 
love  will  never  have  any  affection  for  you." 

This  last  statement,  at  any  rate,  was  a  true  one. 
Madame  de  Stael,  knowing  Madame  R^camier 
from  of  old,  knew  that  she  was  as  passionless  as 
she  was  beautiful,  and  never  engaged  her  heart 
in  any  of  her  innumerable  flirtations.  The 
knowledge  enabled  her  to  remain  her  friend  in 
spite  of  appearances,  and  to  refrain  from  censorious 
criticism  of  her  coquetry.  Criticism  on  that  head 
was  left  to  Albertine,  who,  though  young  and 
brought  up  in  the  midst  of  levity,  had  already 
acquired  serious  views  of  life,  and  who,  in  July 
1 8 14,  wrote  to  her  friend,  Mademoiselle  de 
Barante  :  "  Madame  Rdcamier  is  pretty  and  good, 
but  a  life  of  trivial  coquetry  does  not  elevate  the 
soul.  She  would  be  a  better  woman  if  she  had 
not  squandered  her  heart  here,  there,  and  every- 
where." 

What  Madame  de  Stael's  husband  was  saying 
and  doing  at  this  period  we  do  not  know.  Seeing 
that  her  marriage  to  him  was  still  unacknowledged, 
and  that  the  child  which  she  had  borne  him  was 
being  brought  up  under  a  false  name  in  a  village 
in  the  Jura,  the  probability  is  that  he  said  and 
did  very  little.  He  had  accepted  an  undignified 
position,  and  he  had  to  make  the  best  of  it ; 
perhaps  he  was  glad  that  he  was  an  invalid  and 
had  that  excuse  for  remaining  in  the  background. 
At  all  events,  he  remained  there ;  and  one  hears 
little  of  him  except  that  his  wife  did  at  least  refuse 

327 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

to  turn  him  out  of  her  box  at  the  Opera  to  make 
room  for  Benjamin  Constant.  His  case,  however, 
by  no  means  exhausts  the  complications ;  and 
perhaps  the  strangest  fact  of  all  is  that  the  Due  de 
Broglie,  in  the  midst  of  this  sentimental  confusion, 
was  at  once  associating  with  Benjamin  Constant 
and  making  proposals  for  the  hand  of  Albertine 
de  Stael. 

The  lovers,  it  is  evident,  suited  one  another 
admirably.  Neither  of  them  was  very  brilliant, 
and  both  of  them  were  very  serious.  It  was  said 
by  frivolous  observers  that  in  the  days  of  their 
courtship  they  conversed  chiefly  on  the  principles 
of  taxation ;  but  that  is  the  sort  of  thing  that 
frivolous  people  are  much  too  fond  of  saying 
about  serious  people.  The  only  grave  barrier 
between  them  was  a  difference  of  religion ;  and 
that  hardly  mattered,  since  all  serious  people, 
unless  they  are  fanatics,  are  of  the  same 
religion. 

The  religious  difficulty,  at  all  events,  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  the  difficulty  raised  by  the  de 
Broglie  family.  The  Duke's  mother,  married 
en  secondes  noces  to  the  Marquis  d'Argenson,  gave 
her  consent  to  the  match,  but  his  other  relatives 
objected  strongly.  "  Such,"  he  writes,  "  was  the 
prevalent  current  of  opinion,  and  so  great  was  the 
folly  of  aristocratic  prejudice,  lately  disinterred, 
that  my  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  a  great 
Swedish  nobleman  was  regarded  as  a  mesalliance. 
I  was  reminded  of  the  opposition   between  the 

328 


Aristocratic  Prejudices 

Mar^chal  de  Broglie  and  M.  Necker  in  1789; 
our  two  families  were  represented  to  me  as 
Montagues  and  Capulets ;  my  uncle  Am^dde,  to 
whom  I  was  under  real  and  recent  obligations, 
denounced  me  as  ungrateful  to  him.  The  talk, 
in  short,  was  loud,  and  grew  louder  from  hour  to 
hour." 

Probably  the  bridegroom's  summary  of  that 
talk  is  not  quite  exact  and  complete.  The  Due 
de  Broglie's  relatives  were  as  serious  as  he  was 
himself,  and  they  were  not  in  love.  Not  the 
dead  father-in-law  but  the  living  mother-in-law 
was  presumably  the  obstacle  in  their  eyes.  She 
was  serious  enough  in  her  own  way,  but  hardly 
so  in  theirs.  She  had  lived  her  private  life  in 
public,  almost  as  one  giving  a  performance  to 
appreciative  spectators.  They  can  hardly  have 
known  less  than  Gibbon  and  Miss  Berry  about 
her  relations  with  M.  de  Narbonne ;  and  they 
can  hardly  have  known  less  than  Barras  about 
her  relations  with  Benjamin  Constant,  and  may 
easily  have  shared  the  doubts  expressed  in 
Barras'  Journal  whether  the  "great  Swedish 
nobleman  "  was  in  fact  Albertine  de  Stael's  father. 
Moreover,  even  if  they  entertained  no  such  doubts 
and  regarded  the  scandals  which  had  raised  the 
question  as  ancient  history,  there  was  still  the 
case  of  Rocca  to  be  considered.  It  is  all  very 
well  for  the  Due  de  Broglie  to  write  that  Rocca's 
malady  condemned  him  to  "retirement  and 
absolute  silence."     Rocca,  at   any   rate,   was   in 

329 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Paris,  figuring  as  amant  en  titre^  written  of  by 
Byron  as  "  Monsieur  rAmant."  One  can  under- 
stand the  objections  of  serious,  old-fashioned 
people  to  a  mother-in-law  thus  attended  and 
encumbered. 

"But  I  stuck  to  it,"  writes  the  lover.  "The 
marriage  was  arranged  and  announced  immedi- 
ately after  my  mother's  arrival,  and  was  only 
postponed  on  account  of  the  settlements  which 
depended  upon  the  repayment  of  two  million 
francs  generously  lent  to  the  State  by 
M.  Necker." 

This,  however,  is  another  branch  of  the  subject 
concerning  which  the  Due  de  Broglie  only  tells 
us  a  portion  of  the  truth.  The  actual  facts  have 
to  be  deduced  from  the  correspondence  published 
in  the  Critic  to  which  allusion  has  already  been 
made.  The  dowry,  it  appears  from  these  letters, 
was  a  sine  qud  non  of  the  marriage ;  and  if  the 
Government  would  not  discharge  its  debt  to 
Necker,  it  must  be  provided  from  some  other 
source.  The  sudden  return  of  Napoleon  from 
Elba  interrupted  the  negotiations  proceeding  for 
the  assumption  of  the  liability  by  the  State. 
Madame  de  Stael,  who  had  retired  to  Coppet, 
could  not  conveniently  lay  her  hand  upon  the 
ready  money ;  and  she  decided  that  Benjamin 
Constant  must  find  it  for  her.  He  owed  her 
(as  she  considered)  80,000  francs ;  and  he 
had  implored  her  (so  she  declares)  upon  his 
knees  to  permit  him  to  associate   himself  with 

330 


Trouble  about  the  Dowry 

Albertine's  happiness.  Now  was  the  time. 
Benjamin  must  tear  up  the  old  agreement  and 
"  place  40,000  francs  at  Albertine's  disposal."  In 
April  181 5  she  wrote  to  him  to  that  effect,  adding 
that,  in  anticipation  of  his  favourable  answer,  she 
had  promised  that  sum  to  the  Broglie  family. 

Unfortunately,  however,  Benjamin  Constant 
had  no  more  facilities  for  laying  his  hands  upon 
ready  money  than  Madame  de  Stael  herself. 
Most  people,  in  fact,  found  ready  money  a  scarce 
commodity  during  the  Hundred  Days.  He  had  to 
excuse  himself,  therefore,  and  the  correspondence 
speedily  became  embittered.  "You  owe  me 
80,000  francs  "  runs  through  it  like  a  leit-motifs 
there  are,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  most 
violent  threats  of  legal  proceedings.  There  is 
very  little  on  the  subject  in  the  Journal  Intifney 
but  one  entry  shows  us  what  was  Benjamin's 
point  of  view.  "A  letter,"  he  writes,  "from 
Madame  de  Stael.  She  would  like  me  to  do 
nothing  to  promote  my  own  fortune,  and  to  hand 
over  to  her  the  little  that  I  possess.  A  delightful 
arrangement  that ! "  And  he  adds  elsewhere  that 
the  quarrel  has  quite  destroyed  the  remnant  of 
affectionate  sentiment  which  he  had  still  retained 
for  her. 

No  doubt  it  had  nearly  done  so,  if  not  quite. 
Unable  at  the  moment  to  be  generous,  Benjamin 
Constant  had  only  adhered  to  legal  rights  freely 
bestowed  upon  him ;  and  he  was  entitled  to  be 
angry  at   reproaches  which  he  esteemed  unjust. 

331 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Madame  de  Stael  herself  admitted  as  much  when 
she  had  leisure  to  be  reasonable.  "  Your  justifi- 
cation," she  wrote  presently,  ''is  perfect;"  and 
her  letters,  growing  gradually  milder,  may  almost 
be  read  as  an  apology  presented  in  instalments. 
In  June,  a  few  days  before  the  battle  of  Waterloo, 
she  writes  :  "  If  I  can  reconcile  myself  with  God, 
after  having  reproached  you,  I  will  perhaps 
become  softer."  In  July  she  is  saying :  "  I  wish 
that  you  believed  that  I  am  better  disposed  to 
you  than  I  was."  In  August  her  hopes  of 
recovering  Necker's  loan  having  improved  through 
the  fall  of  the  Empire,  she  appeals  to  Benjamin 
to  do  what  he  can  to  strengthen  Victor  de 
Broglie's  devotion  to  her  daughter:  "Try  to 
speak  of  her  before  him.  One  can  praise  her 
certainly  without  exaggerating."  In  September 
it  is  :  "  The  state  of  your  health  causes  me  much 
uneasiness,"  and  also  :  "  I  rely  entirely  on  your 
pride  and  your  zeal  in  what  concerns  Albertine ; " 
and  finally :  "  Give  my  son  good  advice  about 
my  affair.  Do  not  think  any  more  of  the  one 
that  was  in  question  between  us." 

So  that  was  the  end  of  that.  The  restored 
Bourbons  undertook  to  pay  their  debt  to  Necker ; 
the  Papal  permission  for  the  mixed  marriage  was 
obtained ;  Victor  de  Broglie  set  out  for  Coppet, 
accompanied  by  Auguste  de  Stael  and  his  half- 
brother,  Ren6  d'Argenson.  They  crossed  the 
Jura  in  the  snows  of  January  1816,  at  the  time 
when  Benjamin  Constant  was  preparing  to  leave 

332 


ai jooflst  aa  aaeaHaua 


Madame  d 

e  Sta 

Her  Lovers 

Mad— ~  ■'■  ^-" 

:-;1    • 

,xb  much  when 

she  ■ 

*'  Your  justifi- 
i ; "  and 

toi- 

bo    ; 

s  :  "  If  1  ran  reconcile  ir 

Ued    you,    I    v 

iii     J  liiV    '■■ 

r.d  that  I       .  .. ^   J  » 

ts/       In    Aii^rust  her   hopes   of 

ering  NeePUCHESSE  de  BROGLiBed  through 

tne  lall  of  the  P'®'"  ^  Painting  by  Francois  Geraf*  Benjamin 

->    <^o    w)^^W«««c/««.«/.mv  -    ^       -    Victor   de 

Brogiie'-  i    t      her    daughter:    "Try   to 

speak  o(  her  before  him.     One  can  praise  her 

certainly       '  '     ?!   exaggerating."     In  September 

*•  j^  te  of  your  health  causes  me  much^ 

'  also ;  **  I  rely  entirely  o^^'our 

in  what  concerns  Alb^ine ; " 

my  son  good  advice  about 

!.'»■.!.-  i^y  m^''''  '*^  '^*'  *^"^e 

V-.'-^    ^V..^:  ''^  ■■i\  US." 

d  of  tV  ored 

ker ; 

:-..:  was 

Copper 

accGi  ^d  his  half 

brother^    R^  -y   crossed   the 

]ur3  in  the  •>];  i6^  at  the  time 

•f.  i  Benjamiri  paring  to  leave 

332 


Albertine's  Wedding 

Brussels  for  London.  Sismondi  joined  them,  and 
they  went  on  over  the  Mont  Cenis  to  Parma, 
Bologna,  Florence,  and  Pisa,  where  Madame 
de  Stael  and  Albertine  awaited  them.  The 
marriage  was  celebrated  at  Pisa  on  February  20, 
1816,  Sydney  Smith's  brother,  Bob  Smith,^  acting 
as  witness.  It  was  from  Albertine,  now  Duchesse 
de  Broglie,  that  Benjamin  Constant  heard  the 
news.  "All  the  great  emotions  of  my  life,"  she 
wrote,  "  make  me  wish  to  think  of  you  and  speak 
of  you.  .  .  .  What  a  sad  combination  of  circum- 
stances was  necessary  'to  prevent  you  from  being 
present  at  my  wedding!  I  would  not  have 
believed  it  six  years  ago ! " 

"  By  God's  grace,  she  is  happy,"  Madame  de 
Stael  wrote  in  a  letter  despatched  under  the 
same  cover;  and  Benjamin  wrote  to  Madame 
Recamier : — 

"  I  know  that  Albertine  is  married,  and  I  hope 
she  will  be  happy.  Her  husband  is  an  excellent 
man,  and  I  do  not  think  that  she  on  her  part, 
brought  up  as  she  has  been,  feels  any  imperious 
need  of  an  expansive  sensibility.  By  the  excesses 
and  reactions  of  her  own  enthusiasm  Madame  de 
Stael  has  taught  her  children  to  be  perfectly 
rational.  At  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  have, 
together  with  my  affection  for  her,  a  kind  of 
grudge  similar  to  that  of  the  Irishman  who 
accused  a  woman  of  having  changed  him  at 
nurse." 

^  Commonly  called   "  Bobus."     Co-editor  with  Canning  of  the 
Etonian  Microcosm^  and  afterwards  Advocate-General  of  Bengal. 

333 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

Madame  de  Stael  in  Italy  with  the  Broglies — Return  to  Coppet — 
Distinguished  guests — Byron's  visit. 

Let  it  be  said  at  once  that  Albertine  de  Stael 
found  calm  contentment  in  her  married  life. 
Perhaps,  if  she  had  been  quite  enthusiastically 
and  deliriously  happy,  she  would  have  been  a 
little  less  prone  to  quote  the  Scriptures  in  her 
correspondence  and  to  appeal  to  the  consolations 
of  religion.  One  always  suspects  something  of 
the  sort  in  the  case  of  the  ostentatiously  religious  ; 
but  it  is  not  necessary  to  insist  The  Due 
de  Broglie,  at  any  rate,  was  so  attached  to  his 
wife  that,  when  she  died  at  a  comparatively  early 
age,  he  withdrew  from  all  his  public  activities ; 
and  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  divergence  of 
their  creeds  was  ever,  even  temporarily,  a  cause 
of  estrangement.  The  agreement  was  that  the 
sons  should  be  brought  up  as  Catholics  and  the 
daughters  as  Protestants ;  but  the  whole  of  their 
posterity  became  Catholic  in  the  course  of  time. 
Some  of  Madame  de  Stael's  grandchildren  even 
took  Catholic  orders.  Her  great-grandson,  Comte 
d'Haussonville,  the  present  owner  of  Coppet,  an 
Academician,  and  the  author  of  Le  Salon  de 
Madame  Necker,  was  one  of  the  polemists  who 

334 


In  Italy  with  the  Broglies 

combated  the  anti-clerical  policy  of  MM.  Waldeck- 
Rousseau  and  Combes  in  the  columns  of  Le 
Gaulois.  A  deplorable  relapse,  no  doubt,  in  the 
eyes  of  many  readers,  but  one  on  which  there  is 
no  need  to  comment  in  the  present  volume. 

The  early  days  of  the  honeymoon  were  passed 
in  the  north  of  Italy  in  the  society  of  Madame 
de  Stael ;  and  the  course  of  events  is  best  traced 
from  the  Due  de  Broglie's  Reminiscences. 

He  speaks,  in  the  first  instance,  of  an  excursion 
to  Pescia  to  see  Sismondi,  the  form  and  scope 
of  whose  work  on  the  History  of  the  French  is 
said  to  have  been  determined  by  the  conversations 
which  then  took  place.  Lucca  was  next  visited, 
and  then,  on  the  return  to  Pisa,  Madame  de  Stael 
announced  that  she  was  bored,  and  "at  the  first 
breath  of  spring  transferred  her  establishment 
to  Florence."  There,  once  again,  she  found 
brilliant  society,  of  which  the  most  distinguished 
pillar  was  the  Comtesse  d' Albany,  mistress 
successively  of  the  Young  Pretender,  of  the 
poet  Alfieri,  and  of  the  French  painter  Fabre. 

**  Every  day,"  the  Due  de  Broglie  writes, 
"between  two  and  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, she  kept  a  gossip  and  scandal  shop. 
Every  member  of  the  little  club  laid  at  her  feet 
his  tribute  of  news  of  no  importance,  seasoning 
it  with  trivial  comment.  Not  all  who  wished 
to  come  were  admitted  to  this  gathering.  An 
exception  was  made  in  favour  of  Madame  de 
Stael,  and  I  was  invited  in  her  train ;  but  I  did 

335 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

not  abuse  my  privilege.  Once  was  enough  for  me. 
Evil  speaking  has  always  seemed  to  me  the  most 
childish  and  foolish  thing  in  the  worid." 

Towards  the  end  of  Lent  the  Due  de  Broglie, 
accompanied  by  Auguste  de  Stael,  escaped  to 
Rome.  The  escape  was  from  the  insistence 
of  his  mother-in-law  that  he  should  always  be 
attending  receptions,  dressed  in  his  best  clothes. 
He  refused  to  call  at  the  French  Embassy,  and 
neglected  to  see  the  Pope,  preferring  to  spend 
his  time  among  the  monuments  and  in  the  picture 
galleries.  As  soon  as  Easter  was  over  he  returned 
to  Florence,  whence,  three  days  later,  the  whole 
party  set  out  for  Coppet.  At  Bologna,  where 
they  passed  a  day,  the  leaders  of  Society  were 
afraid,  for  political  reasons,  to  associate  with 
Madame  de  Stael,  feeling  that  their  connection 
with  Murat's  mad  enterprise  had  already  com- 
promised them  sufficiently.  At  Milan,  on  the 
contrary,  Madame  de  Stael  "was  well  known, 
and  her  salon  in  her  inn  was  never  empty." 
Gonfalonieri,  the  rising  hope  of  the  Italian 
Liberals,  held  long  and  violent  arguments  with 
Schlegel,  and  "dear  Monti"  also  came  to  call. 
Benjamin  Constant,  it  will  be  remembered,  said 
that  he  had  "a  superb  face";  but  the  Due  de 
Broglie  declares  that  he  "cut  a  poor  figure,"  that 
his  "attitude  was  humble  and  his  conversation 
not  brilliant,"  and  that  Madame  de  Stael  tried 
in  vain  "  to  restore  him  to  self-respect  and  to  the 
good  opinion  of  others." 

336 


Distinguished  Guests 

At  Milan  the  party  divided.  Madame  de  Stael, 
attended  by  Rocca  and  Schlegel,  returned  to 
Switzerland  by  the  Mont  Cenis  and  Savoy.  The 
Due  and  Duchesse  de  Broglie  went  to  Como, 
and  thence  crossed  the  Simplon.  At  Coppet, 
however,  all  were  again  reunited ;  and  Coppet 
was  once  more  gay.  The  leaders  of  the  Opposi- 
tion in  Genevan  politics  were  welcome  there — 
such  men  as  Etienne  Dumont,  Pictet  Diodati, 
Fr^d^ric  de  Chateauvieux,  and  de  Candolle,  the 
naturalist ;  while  open  house  was  also  kept  for 
such  travellers  making  the  grand  tour  as  came 
that  way,  and  were  worthy  to  be  received. 

Lord  Lansdowne  was  one  of  the  visitors — "  the 
perfect  model,"  says  the  Due  de  Broglie,  "of  the 
great  Whig  nobleman."  Henry  Brougham  was 
also  entertained  there.  Asked  some  question  as 
to  English  legal  procedure,  he  sat  down  and  wrote 
currente  calamo  a.  long  essay  on  the  subject,  which 
is  preserved  among  the  Broglie  papers.  Von 
Stein  —  he  who  had  reorganised  the  Prussian 
army  after  Jena — passed  through  on  his  way  to 
Italy,  pausing  to  denounce  in  indignant  language 
the  revival  of  despotic  institutions  in  Central 
Europe,  and  expressing  himself  with  extreme  dis- 
dain concerning  his  own  sovereign,  the  Prussian 
Court,  and  the  German  Bureaucracy.  Laharpe 
— the  friend  of  the  Emperor  Alexander,  who  had 
organised  the  liberation  of  the  Canton  of  Vaud 
from  the  dominion  of  Berne — came  over  from  the 
house  at  Lausanne  where,  living  in  retirement  in 
Y  337 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

the  bosom  of  his  family,  he  looked  down  upon 
the  scene  of  his  triumphs,  and  fought  his  battles 
over  again.  To  strike  the  note  of  contrast  with 
him,  there  was  the  Chevalier  de  Langallerie — he 
who  had  almost  persuaded  Benjamin  Constant  to 
become  a  mystic — a  "fat  little  man,"  according  to 
the  narrator,  who  enjoyed  his  dinner  and  com- 
plained of  indigestion,  snored  in  an  arm-chair,  and 
awoke  to  invite  pity  for  himself  as  a  victim  of 
insomnia,  yet  conversed  admirably  upon  spiritual 
matters.  Finally,  to  strike  the  note  of  contrast 
with  everybody,  there  was  Byron. 

He  and  Madame  de  Stael  had  not  altogether 
liked  each  other  when  they  had  met  in  London. 
As  rival  social  lions  they  had  roared  against  each 
other,  stood  in  each  other  s  light,  and  interfered 
with  each  other's  importance.  He  had  protested 
that  her  conversation  was  too  copious ;  she  had 
credited  him  with  "just  enough  sensibility  to  ruin 
a  woman's  happiness."  But  now  the  conditions 
were  different.  The  principal  victim  of  Byron's 
sensibility  was  Byron  himself;  his  admirers  had 
turned  on  him  and  hounded  him  from  the  country. 
That  was  the  sort  of  situation  with  which  Madame 
de  Stael  could  sympathise.  He  had  hesitated  to 
call,  but  his  apprehensions  were  quite  groundless. 
Though  an  English  visitor,  Mrs.  Hervey,  fainted 
in  the  Coppet  drawing-room  when  she  heard  his 
name  announced,  the  Coppet  hostess  did  not  mind. 
Most  likely  she  was  angry  with  the  lady.  At 
any  rate,  she  was  flattered  to  be  presented  with 

338 


Byron's  Visit 

a  copy  of  Glenarvon  —  the  novel  in  which 
Byron's  character  was  attacked  by  Lady  CaroHne 
Lamb ;  and  she  took  the  keenest  interest  in  his 
difference  with  Lady  Byron.  "  I  believe,"  he 
writes,  **  Madame  de  Stael  did  her  utmost  to 
bring  about  a  reconciliation  between  us.  She 
was  the  best  creature  in  the  world." 

Her  difficulty  in  so  exhibiting  herself  must  have 
been  the  greater  because  neither  her  admiration 
nor  her  friendship  for  the  poet  was  shared  by  the 
members  of  her  household.  On  the  occasion  of 
Mrs.  Hervey's  hysterics  the  company  in  general 
"looked  as  if  his  Satanic  majesty  had  been 
among  them ; "  and  if  her  son-in-law  did  not 
follow  the  example  of  the  others,  his  reason  for 
refraining  was  by  no  means  his  esteem  for  Byron's 
talents,  but  rather  his  feeling  that  he  was  himself  a 
superior  person,  capable  of  seeing  through  Byron's 
fanfaronade.  This  is  his  account  of  the  matter, 
and  his  appreciation  of  the  poet : — 

"  Lord  Byron,  an  exile  of  his  own  free  will, 
having  succeeded,  not  without  difficulty,  in  per- 
suading the  world  of  fashion  in  his  own  country 
that  he  was,  if  not  the  Devil  in  person,  at  least 
a  living  copy  of  Manfred  or  Lara,  had  settled  for 
the  summer  in  a  charming  house  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva.  He  was  living 
with  an  Italian  physician  named  Polidori,  who 
imitated  him  to  the  best  of  his  ability.  It  was 
there  that  he  composed  a  good  many  of  his  little 
poems,  and  that  he  tried  his  hardest  to  inspire 

339 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

the  good  Genevans  with  the  same  horror  and 
terror  that  his  fellow-countrymen  felt  for  him ; 
but  this  was  pure  affectation  on  his  part,  and 
he  only  half  succeeded  with  it  *  My  nephew,' 
Louis  XIV.  used  to  say  of  the  Due  d'Orleans,  '  is, 
in  the  matter  of  crime,  only  a  boastful  pretender.' 
Lord  Byron  was  only  a  boastful  pretender  in  the 
matter  of  vice. 

"As  he  flattered  himself  that  he  was  a  good 
swimmer  and  sailor,  he  was  perpetually  crossing 
the  Lake  in  all  directions,  and  used  to  come  fairly 
often  to  Coppet.  His  appearance  was  agreeable, 
but  not  at  all  distinguished.  His  face  was  hand- 
some, but  without  expression  or  originality ;  his 
figure  was  round  and  short ;  he  did  not  manoeuvre 
his  lame  legs  with  the  same  ease  and  nonchalance 
as  M.  de  Talleyrand.  His  talk  was  heavy  and 
tiresome,  thanks  to  his  paradoxes,  seasoned  with 
profane  pleasantries  out  of  date  in  the  language 
of  Voltaire,  and  the  commonplaces  of  a  vulgar 
Liberalism.  Madame  de  Stael,  who  helped  all 
her  friends  to  make  the  best  of  themselves,  did 
what  she  could  to  make  him  cut  a  dignified  figure 
without  success;  and  when  the  first  moment  of 
curiosity  had  passed,  his  society  ceased  to  attract, 
and  no  one  was  glad  to  see  him." 

So  the  summer  passed.  Madame  de  Stael,  in 
the  leisure  which  her  social  duties  left  her,  was  at 
work  on  her  Considerations  sur  la  R&uolution 
franfaise — a  combined  panegyric  of  her  father 
and  of  the  British  Constitution.  Rocca  was  still 
ill,  and  she  wrote  about  him  to  Madame  R^camier, 
telling  her  what  she  had  previously  told  Benjamin 

340 


The  Magnetism  of  Paris 

Constant,  that  his  nature  was  changing,  and  add- 
ing :  "  Such  patience,  such  thorough  appreciation 
of  and  thankfulness  for  my  care,  have  made  him 
the  most  perfect  friend  that  I  could  imagine  " — 
language  which,  it  will  be  admitted,  was  hardly 
that  of  passion.  To  Benjamin,  at  about  the  same 
date,  she  wrote  that  her  health  was  failing  and 
her  life  likely  to  be  short,  concluding :  "  But 
I  value  it  because  it  is  now  a  happy  one,  and  I 
deplore  the  time  of  which  I  was  robbed  by  un- 
happiness."  Evidently  she  was  at  last  outgrowing 
the  violence  of  passion,  though  she  was  not  yet 
losing,  and  indeed  was  never  to  lose,  her  political 
and  social  interests,  and  her  desire  to  be  always 
"in  the  movement." 

To  her,  indeed,  as  to  Voltaire,  this  passion  to 
be  in  the  movement  was  to  be  fatal.  The  attrac- 
tions of  the  French  capital  lured  the  sage  from 
Ferney  to  his  death ;  similarly  Madame  de  Stael, 
who  might  have  lived  long  if  she  had  remained  at 
Coppet,  heard  Paris  calling,  and  could  not  resist 
the  call,  even  at  a  season  at  which  the  climate  was 
likely  to  be  unfavourable  both  to  her  own  health 
and  to  that  of  her  husband.  Her  son-in-law 
returned  before  her ;  but  she  soon  followed  him, 
attended  by  Rocca  and  Schlegel,  arriving  early  in 
November. 

"  That  was  her  last  winter,"  the  Due  de  Broglie 
writes. 


341 


CHAPTER  XXX 

Madame  de  Stael's  last  journey  to  Paris — Her  illness  and  death. 

Madame  de  Stael  was  already  ill  when  she 
arrived  at  Paris.  The  first  symptoms  of  paralysis 
had  declared  themselves.  But  she  would  not  give 
in  or  submit  to  treatment 

**  She  resisted  the  attack,"  writes  the  Due  de 
Broglie,  "  with  heroic  impetuosity  :  invited  every- 
where, going  everywhere,  keeping  open  house, 
receiving  in  the  morning,  at  dinner,  and  in  the 
evening,  all  the  distinguished  men  of  all  parties, 
ranks,  and  stations,  taking  the  same  interest  in 
politics,  literature,  philosophy,  and  Society, 
whether  serious  or  frivolous,  intimate  or  noisy,  of 
the  Government  or  of  the  Opposition,  as  in  the 
brightest  days  of  her  early  youth." 

He  goes  on  to  name  names.  M.  de  Barante, 
we  read,  gave  a  dinner  for  the  purpose  of  intro- 
ducing Royer-Collard  to  Madame  de  Stael,  and 
Royer-Collard,  being  a  pedant,  was  shocked  by 
her  vivacity.  Camille  Jordan  also  reappeared 
upon  the  scene.  The  Due  de  Broglie  does  not 
mention  that  Camille  Jordan  had  once  been 
Madame  de  Stael's  lover,  but  merely,  while 
admitting  the  charm  of  his  conversation,  sniffs  at 
him  as  "  provincial."    From  other  sources  we  hear 

342 


Alarming  Symptoms 

of  her  as  entertaining  Pasquier,  Fontanes,  Lally, 
and  Chateaubriand.  An  extract  from  a  letter  from 
Madame  Rilliet-Huber  to  Henri  Meister  may 
complete  the  picture. 

**  Madame  de  Stael  has  reached  the  height  of 
her  ambition.  Her  house  is  the  most  animated 
in  Paris,  and  she  exercises  all  the  influence  she 
wishes  without  encountering  any  opposition. 
Her  fortune  is  great;  her  daughter  is  charming; 
Rocca  may  pass ;  but  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  her 
health  is  much  disturbed.  She  writes  to  me  often, 
and  wishes  to  return  to  Coppet." 

The  date  of  that  letter  is  February  14,  1817  ; 
the  strain  of  the  season  had  had  time  to  tell.  It 
was  only  a  few  days  later  that  the  symptoms 
became  alarming.  Attending  a  reception  at  the 
house  of  the  Due  Decazes,  Madame  de  Stael 
fainted  on  the  staircase.  She  was  lifted  to  her 
carriage,  and  from  her  carriage  to  her  bed. 
Dropsy  was  diagnosed,  and  when  the  dropsy  got 
better,  paralysis  began  to  set  in. 

Even  so,  thanks  to  her  strength  of  will,  she 
seemed  to  get  better.  She  rose,  and  dressed,  and 
"  received  ; "  she  even  gave  dinner  parties,  though 
she  had  to  leave  her  children  to  do  the  honours  of 
her  table.  As  the  weather  improved,  she  was 
removed  from  her  house  in  the  Rue  Royale  to 
another  in  the  Rue  Neuve-des-Mathurins,  where 
she  sat  in  the  garden  in  a  state  of  semi-somnolence. 
It  was  at  this  stage,  presumably,  that  she  wrote 

343 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

(or  rather  dictated)  her  last  pathetic  letter  to  Miss 
Berry.  "Cruel  cramps,"  she  said,  had  deprived 
her  of  the  use  of  her  hands  and  feet ;  for  ninety 
days  she  had  been  lying  on  her  back,  "like  a 
tortoise,  but  much  more  troubled  in  my  mind 
and  my  imagination  than  that  animal."  She 
had  hoped  to  start  for  Switzerland  on  the 
I  St  of  May,  but  cannot  even  be  sure  of  starting 
on  the  I  St  of  July.  In  fact,  she  passes  her  time 
alternately  in  self-deception  and  despair  :  **  Truly 
it  is  a  punishment  of  Heaven  when  the  most 
active  person  in  the  world  finds  herself  as  it  were 
petrified."  "May  God,"  she  prays,  "deliver  me 
from  the  abyss  in  which  His  hand  alone  can 
avail  me ! " 

Every  physician  of  note  in  Paris  was  called  in  ; 
and  as  none  of  them  afforded  any  relief  or  held 
out  any  hope,  the  Due  de  Broglie  posted  to 
Geneva,  meaning  to  bring  the  celebrated  Dr. 
Butini  back  with  him.  Butini  would  not  come. 
He  was  an  old  man,  he  said,  and  would  not  risk 
his  own  health  in  a  hopeless  case.  The  next 
best  man  was  Dr.  Jurine,  who  knew  Madame  de 
Stael,  and  out  of  affection  for  her  rather  than  for 
the  sake  of  his  fee,  consented  to  take  the  journey. 
But  he  arrived  too  late,  and  his  treatment  had  not 
even  the  temporary  illusion  of  success.  It  was 
now  apparent  to  all  that  the  effort  to  live  had 
nearly  exhausted  itself,  and  that  the  end  was  very 
near. 

Yet  the  effort  continued.     "  When  I  arrived  at 
344 


The  Closing  Scenes 

Paris  the  17th  of  June,"  writes  one  of  Miss  Berry's 
correspondents,  "  she  was  supposed  to  be  at  the 
point  of  death ;  she  rallied  from  that  attack,  and 
her  family  indulged  great  hopes,  but  which  no 
physician  encouraged.  ...  I  saw  her  a  week 
before  her  death;  she  was  as  eager  as  ever  on 
politics.  M.  de  Montmorency  was  by  her  bed- 
side, and  she  disputed  with  him  the  great  question 
of  liberty  as  formerly.  I  dined  there  on  the 
Sunday ;  she  saw  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  ..." 

And  so  we  come  to  the  closing  scenes,  which 
may  be  best  described  in  the  Due  de  Broglie's 
words. 

*'  Madame  de  Stael  received,  day  and  night,  the 
passionately  anxious  care  of  her  daughter  and  of 
a  young  English  lady  who  had,  for  many  years, 
resided  at  Geneva,  and  whose  life,  so  stormy  and 
unfortunate,  had  resolved  itself,  if  I  may  so  say, 
into  ardent  and  impetuous  devotion  to  our  family. 
Mademoiselle  Randall  and  my  wife  spent  alternate 
nights  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  of  pain  ;  my  brother- 
in-law  and  myself  watched  alternately  in  the 
adjoining  room.  We  could  see  the  fatal  moment 
draw  nearer  from  hour  to  hour.  The  nervous 
agitation  became  continuous ;  the  interval  between 
the  spasms  shorter  and  shorter.  Madame  de 
Stael  deceived  herself  no  longer.  The  loftiness 
of  her  soul,  the  vivacity  of  her  mind,  and  her 
interest  in  persons  and  things  never  deserted  her 
for  a  day,  an  hour,  or  a  minute.  What  she  feared 
was  that  she  might  not  see  herself  die — that  she 
might  fall  into  a  sleep  from  which  she  would  not 
wake. 

345 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

"  A  sad  presentiment ! 

"On  the  13th  of  July,  towards  eleven  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  at  the  close  of  a  very  painful  day, 
everything  seemed  quiet  in  Madame  de  Stael's 
room  ;  she  was  dozing.  Mademoiselle  Randall 
was  at  her  pillow,  holding  one  of  her  hands  ;  my 
wife  had  lain  down  exhausted  on  a  chair  bedstead, 
and  my  brother-in-law  was  lying  on  a  sofa.  I 
went  home,  and  threw  myself,  without  undressing, 
on  my  bed.  Towards  five  in  the  morning,  I 
awoke  with  a  start,  jumped  out  of  bed,  and  ran  to 
Madame  de  Stael's  room.  Mademoiselle  Randall, 
who  had  fallen  asleep  while  holding  her  hand  as 
I  have  described,  had  found,  on  waking,  that  the 
hand  was  cold,  and  that  the  arm  and  the  whole 
body  were  motionless. 

"  All  was  over. 

"  The  doctor  in  attendance,  summoned  in  haste, 
found  only  a  lifeless  corpse  upon  the  bed." 

She  had  died  as  she  had  feared,  and  as  many 
another  would  have  wished  to  die — with  no  priest 
to  mumble  formulae ;  with  no  accompaniment  of 
unavailing  tears,  and  no  harrowing  and  pro- 
tracted deathbed  scene  ;  unconscious  of  all  the 
complications  at  the  hour  when  the  tangle  was  cut. 

The  occupant  of  the  second  floor  of  the  house 
placed  his  apartment  at  the  disposal  of  the 
mourners.  "  I  installed  M.  Rocca,  M.  Schlegel, 
and  Mademoiselle  Randall  there,"  writes  the  Due 
de  Broglie,  "and  I  returned  to  pass  the  night  in 
the  house  of  the  dead.  Benjamin  Constant  came 
to  join  me  there,  and  we  watched  by  the   body 

346 


Necessity  stronger  than  Moral  Law 

together.  He  was  touched  to  the  quick,  and 
genuinely  moved.  After  having  exhausted 
personal  recollections,  we  consecrated  long  hours 
to  serious  reflections,  discussing  all  the  problems 
which  naturally  arise  in  the  soul  in  the  presence 
of  death."  An  impressive  scene  truly,  and  per- 
haps the  most  moving  in  the  whole  of  the  troubled 
history  of  their  love. 

Each  of  the  lovers  had  been  unfaithful  to  the 
other,  and  yet  each  of  them  had  been  necessary 
to  the  other — a  truth  which  they  had  proved  to 
themselves  again  and  again,  while  trying  their 
hardest  to  disprove  it.  Both  lives  had  been  rich 
in  other  interests,  both  personal  and  political ; 
but  their  passion  had  been  the  great  fact  in  both 
lives  that  always  mattered  even  when  they  per- 
suaded themselves  that  it  did  not  matter  at  all. 
Though  Benjamin  Constant  had  married  a  second 
wife  and  Madame  de  Stael  had  taken  to  herself 
a  second  husband,  they  both  found  it  impossible 
to  respect  the  barrier  which  they  had  themselves 
set  up.  We  have  seen  how  Benjamin,  while 
apparently  living  a  peaceful  domesticated  life  with 
Charlotte  at  Gottingen,  noted  in  his  Diary  that 
he  was  as  much  occupied  with  Madame  de  Stael 
as  he  had  been  ten  years  before.  We  have  also 
seen  Madame  de  Stael  assuring  Benjamin  Constant 
that  her  marriage  to  Rocca  need  be  no  hindrance 
to  the  renewal  of  her  intimacy  with  him.  Their 
relations  towards  each  other  were  governed  by  a 
Necessity  stronger  than  any  moral  law. 

347 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

It  is  true  that,  with  the  passing  of  the  years, 
the  intensity  of  the  emotion  had  slackened.  That 
was  a  part  of  their  tragedy — as  it  is  a  part  of  the 
tragedy  of  all  dramas  that  are  too  long  drawn  out 
Both  of  the  lovers  had  nearly  attained  fifty  years 
of  age ;  both  of  them  had  outgrown  the  early 
capacity  for  passion.  Madame  de  Stael's  letters 
show  that  she  had  latterly  cherished  the  memory 
of  a  passion  rather  than  the  passion  itself. 
Benjamin  Constant's  Diary  shows  him  fully  per- 
suaded in  his  own  mind  that  the  last  remnant  of 
his  sentiment  had  perished. 

There  exists,  and  has  been  printed,  a  character 
sketch  of  Madame  de  Stael  which  was  to  have 
been  included  in  a  work  which  Benjamin  Constant 
began  but  never  finished  on  the  early  years  and 
early  friends  of  Madame  Rdcamier.  It  was  written 
at  the  time  of  his  foolish  unreciprocated  passion  for 
that  lady,  and  it  is  couched  in  the  cold  tone  of 
critical  and  amused  approbation.  All  the  incon- 
sistencies— and  they  were  many — in  Madame  de 
Stael's  character  are  brought  into  clear  relief. 
Madame  de  Stael  is  depicted  as  a  woman  who 
always  does  what  she  wishes  to  do,  and  always 
believes  that  whatever  she  does  is  right,  support- 
ing any  line  of  conduct  by  the  appeal  to  first 
principles  divinely  sanctioned. 

"If  she  is  in  love,  and  if  the  object  of  her  love 
has  a  will  that  opposes  her  own,  and  speaks  of  the 
claims  of  his  family  and  his  duties,  or  asserts 
any  other  title  to  independence,  partial  or  com- 

348 


Love  stronger  than  Death 

plete,  permanent  or  transitory,  then  nothing  is 
more  beautiful  than  to  hear  Madame  de  Stael 
talk  with  all  the  energy  of  the  Nouvelle  H^loise 
of  the  communion  of  souls,  of  devotion,  which  is 
the  sacred  duty  of  every  superior  nature,  of  happi- 
ness, and  of  the  sacro-sanctity  of  two  existences 
indissolubly  linked  together. 

"Is  she,  on  the  other  hand,  a  mother,  and  does 
one  of  her  children  prefer  the  enthusiasm  of  an 
absorbing  passion  to  the  obedience  which  she 
claims  ?  Then  nothing  is  more  sublime  than  the 
picture  which  she  draws  of  the  duties  of  filial  piety, 
the  obligations  of  the  family,  the  rights  of  a 
mother,  and  the  necessity  of  a  young  man's  dis- 
engaging himself  from  frivolous  affections  in  order 
to  enter  upon  an  honourable  career  ;  for  every  man 
owes  an  account  to  Providence  for  the  faculties 
which  Providence  has  given  him,  and  woe  upon 
him  who  thinks  that  he  can  live  for  love !  In  all 
that  Madame  de  Stael  is  not  an  egoist ;  for  she 
does  not  mean  to  be  one,  and  morality  is  a  matter 
of  conscience." 

That  is  the  most  characteristic  passage  in  the 
essay.  It  has  been  said,  most  plausibly,  to  be  the 
criticism  of  a  lover  who  has  definitely  ceased  to 
love.  Benjamin  Constant,  when  he  penned  it, 
would  have  considered  the  verdict  just.  But 
death  came  and  proved  that  love  was  stronger 
than  death.  Benjamin  Constant  was  always  in 
love  with  love  even  when  he  was  not  in  love  with 
Madame  de  Stael ;  he  himself  has  written  that 
the  necessity  for  love  was  the  ruling  passion  of  his 
life    and    the   determining   factor   of  his   career. 

349 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

Madame  de  Stael  had  loved  him  to  his  undoing, 
but  at  least  she  had  loved  him  as  no  other  woman 
had.  It  was  inevitable,  at  this  solemn  hour,  that 
he  should  remember  that — the  memories  returning 
to  him  with  a  rush — and  should  forget  the  rest. 

For  if  he  could  not  love  her,  at  least  he  could 
love  no  other.  At  the  time  of  the  last  estrange- 
ment he  had  written  that  there  was  no  longer 
anything  for  him  to  look  forward  to  in  life.  He 
might  or  might  not  have  continued  in  that  mood 
if  she  had  lived.  But  she  had  passed  beyond 
these  voices,  and,  passing,  had  set  the  seal  upon 
his  words.  The  curtain  had  fallen  on  the  drama. 
It  would  never  be  lifted,  and  there  would  be  no 
other  drama  to  follow ;  he  was  too  old  to  begin 
his  sentimental  life  again.  So  he  watched  by  the 
bier,  engaged  with  many  solemn  reflections, 
mourning  not  only  for  his  mistress,  but  also  for 
his  own  dead  youth. 


350 


CHAPTER   XXXI 

The  last  years  of  Benjamin  Constant. 

They  buried  Madame  de  Stael,  according  to  her 
desire,  in  her  father's  sepulchre  at  Coppet.  The 
coffin  was  met  by  Bonstetten  and  Sismondi — the 
*'  Mondi "  ^  who  had  still  remained  faithful  when 
the  fear  of  Napoleon  drove  away  her  other 
friends ;  and  all  Geneva,  as  the  Due  de  Broglie 
tells  us,  followed  the  funeral.  Her  will  ac- 
knowledged her  husband,  who  only  survived  her 
a  few  months,  and  the  child  which  she  had 
borne  to  him.  The  latter  had  been  registered  in 
the  name  of  Giles,  and  described  as  the  son  of 
American  parents.  Certain  formalities  had 
therefore  to  be  performed  in  order  that  the 
situation  might  be  regularised.  Auguste  de 
Stael  duly  performed  them,  and  fetched  the 
infant  from  the  house  of  the  Protestant  minister 
who  had  taken  charge  of  it  and  kept  its  mother's 
secret.  "I  ask  you,"  he  wrote  to  Meister,  "to 
extend  to  my  brother  Alphonse  the  protection 
and  friendship  with  which  you  are  good  enough 
to  honour  me.  I  hope  that  he  will  one  day  be 
worthy  to  feel  the  value  of  it."     There  are  also 

^  *'  Die  meisten  Bekannten  fliehen,  Frende  wanken,  nur  Mondi 
nicht." — Bonstetten  to  Frederika  Brun. 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

some  affectionate  references  to  the  child  in  the 
letters  of  the  Duchesse  de  Broglie.  She  finds 
him  backward,  takes  him  for  walks,  and  tries  to 
teach  him  what  little  she  knows  of  natural  history. 
This  Rocca  episode  is  not,  it  must  be  allowed, 
an  agreeable  story  for  an  admirer  of  Madame  de 
Stael  to  face,  and  most  of  her  admirers  have 
therefore  slurred  over  it,  hinting  apologies  as  they 
passed.  She  could  not  be  expected,  they  suggest, 
though  without  insisting,  publicly  to  change  a 
name  which  she  had  made  illustrious  by  her 
talents ;  and  so  she  may  herself  have  argued. 
But  the  excuse  leads  rather  far.  We  need  not, 
indeed,  concern  ourselves  about  the  wrong  done 
to  Rocca ;  he  was  a  fool,  and  was  treated  accord- 
ing to  his  folly.  But  the  case  of  the  child,  brought 
up,  with  a  false  Mat  civil,  under  the  name  of 
Giles,  is  pitiful  and  painful.  He  was  sacrificed, 
not  to  his  mother's  proper  pride,  but  to  her 
vanity.  She  was  more  afraid  of  laughter  than  of 
moral  reprobation.  In  most  matters,  and  on 
most  occasions,  she  could  defy  the  world ;  but 
she  could  not  afford  to  place  the  weapon  of 
ridicule  in  her  enemies'  hands,  and  shrank  from 
their  mockery  of  her  autumnal  love.  She  shrank 
from  it  the  more,  no  doubt,  because  her  love  for 
Rocca  was  not  really  love,  but  only  make-believe, 
and  a  concession  to  the  weakness  of  the  flesh. 
That  is  all  that  there  is  to  be  said  on  the  subject, 
and  it  is  best  to  say  it  and  have  done  with  it. 
Something  should  be  said,  however,  of  the 
35* 


Overrated  and  then   Underrated 

literary  genius  which,  in  the  view  of  Madame  de 
Stael's  admirers,  partially  justified  her  in  adopting 
different  moral  standards  from  those  accepted  by 
less  gifted  persons.  She  was  certainly  overrated 
in  her  lifetime,  and  she  has  probably  been  under- 
rated since.  She  was  highly  esteemed  at  one 
time  for  her  contributions  to  metaphysical  and 
political  philosophy,  but  these  are  negligible 
because  they  were  not  original.  The  voice  was 
only  an  echo,  and  the  echo  was  not  always 
accurate.  In  metaphysics  the  chief  credit  belongs 
not  to  the  interpreter  who  tried,  in  a  few  well- 
chosen  words,  to  tell  the  world  what  Kant  thought, 
but  to  Kant  who  did  the  thinking,  and,  in  a  less 
degree,  to  Schlegel  and  Crabb  Robinson,  who 
expounded  the  doctrine  of  Forms  and  Categories 
in  language  which  Madame  de  Stael  was  capable 
of  understanding.  In  politics  she  echoed  Necker, 
and  had  little  to  say  except  that  all  would  have 
been  for  the  best  in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds  if 
Necker's  advice  had  been  followed — a  proposition 
which  finds  no  supporters  among  serious  historians. 
Among  novels,  on  the  other  hand,  Corinne 
indubitably  counts  to  a  certain  extent,  and  in  a 
certain  way.  It  is  a  monument  of  self-deception, 
just  as  Adolphe  is  a  monument  of  self-analysis. 
Both  works  alike  may  be  described  as  bitter  cries, 
but  the  methods  of  the  authors  are  antithetically 
opposed.  Madame  de  Stael  writes  as  one  who 
cries  for  the  moon,  and  can  find  consolation  in 
pretending  that  she  has  got  it ;  Benjamin  Constant 
z  353 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

as  one  who  has  obtained  the  moon,  and  only- 
wishes  that  someone  would  take  it  off  his  hands. 
He,  that  is  to  say,  built  on  a  real  and  she  on  a 
fanciful  foundation  ;  and  the  distinction  is  reflected 
in  the  respective  fortunes  of  the  two  romances. 
The  success  of  Corinne  was  a  brilliant  flash  in 
the  pan ;  the  success  of  Adolphe  was  much  less 
brilliant,  but  has  proved  much  more  enduring. 
For  Adolphe  was  true ;  and,  even  in  fiction,  it  is 
truth  that  tells  in  the  long  run. 

Personality,  however,  tells  also ;  and  in  all 
Madame  de  Stael's  work  it  was  the  personality, 
not  the  philosophy,  that  told.  Her  version  of 
the  philosophy  of  Kant,  for  instance,  is  interest- 
ing not  because  it  is  sound  but  because  it  is 
sentimental,  and  because  sentiment  rather  than 
philosophy  was  to  her  the  thing  that  mattered. 
She  wanted  to  pull  wires ;  she  wanted  to  be 
witty  and  wise  ;  she  wanted  a  group  of  flatterers 
to  hang  upon  her  wise  and  witty  words ;  but  all 
that  was  nothing  worth  unless  she  could  also 
love  and  be  loved.  That  is  the  idea  which 
pervades  her  writings,  giving  them  such  freshness 
and  vitality  as  they  still  possess.  That  was  the 
quality  by  which  she  held  Benjamin  Constant's 
affection,  in  spite  of  his  infidelities,  for  so  many 
years,  and  compelled  him,  in  spite  of  quarrels  and 
estrangements,  to  consecrate  a  night  of  memories 
and  sighs  to  her  when  she  was  dead. 

Benjamin  Constant  had  still,  as  it  happened,  a 
good  many  years  to  live  ;  and  the  last  years  of 

354 


Benjamin  Constant's  Political  Career 

his  life  were,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  political 
historian,  the  most  important.  So  far,  he  had 
only  been  able  to  give  himself  to  politics  by  fits 
and  starts.  He  had  lived,  like  Madame  de  Stael, 
though  to  a  less  extent,  in  exile.  The  love  of 
women  had  sometimes  sapped  his  energies,  and 
sometimes  diverted  them  into  unexpected  channels. 
In  so  far  as  he  had  had  any  political  career  at  all, 
it  had  been  a  long  series  of  inconsistencies.  Now 
he  had  a  policy  and  a  cause.  His  action  during 
the  Hundred  Days  had  caused  him,  for  a  time,  to 
be  proscribed,  and  was  a  weapon  in  the  hands  of 
his  enemies  for  ever  afterwards ;  but,  on  his 
return,  he  soon  became  a  Deputy,  and  a  leading 
figure  in  the  ranks  of  the  Liberal  Opposition  to 
the  Bourbon  regime.  His  speeches  have  been 
printed,  and  fill  several  volumes ;  but  their 
interest  is  for  the  historian  rather  than  the 
biographer.  It  suffices  here  to  note  the  im- 
pression which  he  had  made. 

"His  enunciation,"  writes  M.  de  Lomenie, 
'*  was  difficult,  especially  in  his  first  few  sentences  ; 
but  as  soon  as  he  warmed  to  his  work  attention 
was  captivated  by  the  appearance  of  his  magnifi- 
cent figure,  and  his  face,  so  tired,  and  yet  so 
handsome,  so  distinguished,  so  original,  set  in  a 
frame  of  long  blond  locks  which  fell  in  curls  upon 
his  coat  collar,  and  by  the  curious  combination 
of  German  nonchalance,  British  stiffiiess,  and 
French  vivacity  which  characterised  his  per- 
sonality.    Always  witty  in  his  expressions  of  his 

355 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

emotion,  always  polite  in  his  persiflage,  always 
cool  in  his  anger,  possessed  of  the  art  of  saying  all 
that  there  was  to  be  said,  he  compelled  even 
those  whom  his  utterances  profoundly  irritated, 
to  listen  to  him." 

"  One  saw  him  arrive  at  the  Chamber,"  writes 
M.  Loeve  Veimars,  "always  a  few  minutes  before 
the  opening  of  the  sitting,  attired  in  his  Deputy's 
uniform,  embroidered  with  silver  lace,  in  order 
to  be  ready  to  ascend  the  tribune,  in  which  that 
costume  was  de  rigueur^  at  any  moment.  His 
head  was  fair  and  white.  He  wore  an  old  round 
hat,  and  held  under  his  arm  an  overcoat,  some 
manuscripts,  some  books,  some  printers'  proofs, 
a  portfolio  of  official  papers,  and  his  crutch." 

For  his  friends — and  especially  for  the  students 
who  loudly  shouted  applause — he  was  the  en- 
thusiastic champion  of  liberty ;  for  his  enemies 
he  was  a  man  of  selfish  and  extravagant  ambition. 
In  truth  he  was  neither  the  one  thing  nor  the  other, 
but  an  emotional  bankrupt,  who  could  only  escape 
from  himself  in  strife  and  feverish  excitement. 

He  had,  of  course,  "  the  good  Charlotte  " — the 
most  forgiving  as  well  as  the  most  devoted  of 
wives.  He  knew  her  worth.  He  sings  her 
praises  in  his  letters,  seeming,  as  it  were,  to  pat 
her  on  the  back,  in  appreciative  recognition  of 
her  "angelic"  qualities.  But  she  could  not  fill 
his  life,  and  his  affection  for  her  was  only  the 
sort  of  affection  that  he  might  have  felt  for  an 
attentive  domestic  servant     He||ild  told  Madame 

356 


The  Burden  of  Consciousness 

R^camier  that  he  would  try  to  make  her  happy 
and  pretend  to  share  her  happiness.  Perhaps 
he  did  pretend ;  perhaps  there  were  times  when 
the  pretence  deceived  her.  But  he  himself  was 
never  deceived.  He  had  survived  his  interest 
in  life,  and  there  remained  only  the  effort  to 
escape  from  the  burden  of  consciousness.  He 
made  speeches  to  escape  from  it ;  he  fought  duels 
to  escape  from  it ;  he  worked  hard  at  his  book 
on  Religions  to  escape  from  it ;  he  gambled  to 
escape  from  it ;  and  all  his  endeavours  were 
equally  in  vain. 

Sometimes  he  appeared  to  be  taking  himself 
seriously ;  at  other  times  he  did  not.  One  of 
his  duels — that  with  M.  de  Forbin — seems  to 
belong  to  farcical  extravaganza.  Crippled  with 
gout,  he  fired  his  pistol,  sitting  in  a  bath-chair, 
and  honour  was  declared  to  be  satisfied  when  the 
chair  was  hit.  There  are  stories,  too,  of  his  having 
ridiculed,  at  the  gaming-table,  the  impassioned 
arguments  which  he  had  just  employed  in  the 
Chamber ;  and  he  certainly  suffered  in  public 
esteem  by  his  frequentation  of  such  resorts.  But 
he  was  thoroughly  in  earnest  when  he  wrote  about 
religion.  As  Sainte-Beuve  justly  says  :  *' '  I  wish 
I  could  believe '  is  written  across  the  pages  of  his 
work  on  that  great  subject  as  clearly  as  *  I  wish 
I  could  love'  is  written  across  the  pages  of 
Adolpke"  Nor  was  his  conduct  by  any  means 
that  of  a  farceur  during  the  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1830. 

357 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

The  outbreak  found  him  in  the  country,  where 
he  had  just  undergone  a  grave  operation,  when 
Lafayette  wrote  to  him  :  **  We  are  playing  a  game 
here  in  which  our  heads  may  be  the  stakes. 
Come  and  lay  your  own  stake  on  the  table." 
The  doctors  forbade  him  to  stir,  but  he  defied 
them,  caused  himself  to  be  carried  in  a  sedan- 
chair  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  supported,  in 
an  eloquent  harangue,  the  monarchical  solution 
of  the  crisis.  "  They  carried  him,"  says  M.  Loeve 
Veimars,  "  from  the  Hotel  de  Ville  to  the  Palais 
Royal.  It  was  a  banner  torn  and  tattered  by 
many  combats  that  they  thus  unfolded  and  dis- 
played with  enthusiasm  before  the  fire  of  the 
enemy."  His  reward,  apart  from  his  self-satisfac- 
tion, was  a  gift  of  200,000  francs  from  Louis- 
Philippe  ;  and  his  enemies  naturally  declared  that 
he  had  been  bought,  though  his  friends  avow 
that,  in  accepting  the  gift,  he  stipulated  that 
he  should  still  be  considered  free  to  oppose  the 
Government  if  he  disagreed  with  its  measures. 

At  the  height  of  his  political  influence  and 
success,  however,  he  remained  a  supremely  un- 
happy man,  as  is  clear  from  his  letters  to  his 
cousins.  Sometimes  it  is  his  failing  health  that 
is  his  trouble.  He  fell  one  day,  while  descending 
from  the  tribune,  and  thenceforward  suffered  from 
lameness  in  addition  to  his  gout,  and  had  to  walk 
with  crutches.  '*  The  axe,"  he  writes  to  Rosalie, 
"  has  been  laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree."  Perhaps 
he  will  live  for  another  ten  or  twenty  years,  but 

358 


Failing  Health 

only  from  day  to  day,  "  thanking  nature  like  the 
man  who  every  morning  thanked  the  Sultan 
because  his  head  was  still  on  his  shoulders." 
His  chest,  too,  is  affected.  It  gets  worse  every 
winter.  **  One  of  these  winters  it  will  be  all  over 
with  me,  and  that  winter  is  not  very  distant." 
A  little  later,  he  says  : — 

"Thirty  years  ago  I  said  to  myself  that,  after 
I  was  fifty,  I  would  not  worry  about  my  health 
except  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  acute  suffering, 
and  I  am  more  faithful  to  this  resolution  than 
I  expected  to  be.  My  stomach  is  getting  weak, 
and  my  eyes  are  failing.  I  do  nothing  to  fortify 
the  former,  and  I  do  not  spare  the  latter.  If 
I  lose  my  sight  before  my  death,  I  will  keep  quiet 
and  ruminate  on  my  past  life.  Meanwhile  I 
remain  active  by  habit,  like  the  knight  in 
Ariosto,  who  went  on  fighting,  forgetting  that 
he  was  dead." 

And  then  it  is  : — 

**  Yes,  dear  Rosalie,  the  years  roll  by,  taking  our 
strength  with  them,  and  bringing  infirmities  in 
their  train.  Bit  by  bit,  they  deprive  us  of  all  our 
pleasures,  leaving  us  for  sustenance  only  the  past 
which  is  sorrowful,  and  for  perspective  only  the 
future  which  is  short.  I  thank  you  for  what  you 
say  as  to  the  use  to  which  I  have  put  my  life.  I 
have  not  done  the  quarter  of  what  I  meant  to  do,and 
if  I  were  not  very  much  ashamed  of  having  wasted 
my  time  and  my  powers,  I  should  be  very  proud 
of  all  the  kind  things  that  people  are  saying  about 
what  I  have  achieved  in  spite  of  the  waste.     For 

359 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

the  rest,  what  does  it  matter  ?  A  ditch  is  there, 
awaiting  the  laborious  as  well  as  the  lazy,  the 
famous  as  well  as  the  obscure,  closing  com- 
placently without  caring  what  it  covers.  I  should 
like  to  see  you  before  I  descend  into  it ;  but  I 
dare  no  longer  make  plans.  ...  I  work,  as  they 
say,  to  'leave  something  behind  me.'  This  me, 
what  will  become  of  it,  and  what  will  it  have  in 
common  with  that  which  I  shall  have  left  ?  No 
matter!  I  work  because  habit  compels  me  and 
the  time  is  heavy  on  my  hands." 

Last  of  all  we  may  quote  this  passage  from  a 
letter  written  to  Charles  de  Constant  on  the 
occasion  of  the  death  of  his  wife : — 

"  Thus  is  the  world  depopulated  for  those  who 
are  advanced  in  life.  All  that  is  dear  to  them 
forsakes  them,  and  the  world  is  no  longer  for 
them  anything  but  a  vast  desert,  to  be  crossed 
with  courage.  But  courage  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  happiness." 

When  that  was  written,  the  end  was  very  near, 
though  there  was  still  time  for  one  more  failure. 
On  November  i8,  1830,  Benjamin  Constant  pre- 
sented himself  unsuccessfully  as  a  candidate  for 
a  vacant  chair  in  the  French  Academy.  To  the 
author  of  Adolphe  the  Academicians  preferred  a 
M.  Viennet,  whoever  he  may  have  been ;  and 
about  three  weeks  afterwards,  on  December  8, 
he  died. 

Life  had  disappointed  him ;  success  had  come 
360 


A  Great  Tribute 

to  him  too  late  to  be  gratifying ;  he  had  but 
recently  written  that  he  was  glad  that  he  was  sixty 
years  of  age,  and  that  his  pilgrimage  was  nearly 
over.  But  his  funeral  was  a  blaze  of  triumph, 
and  the  people  mourned  for  him  as  for  a  hero. 
A  civic  wreath  was  laid  upon  his  seat  in  the 
Chamber.  A  demand  was  made  that  the  entire 
Chamber,  in  costume,  should  attend  his  obsequies, 
and  that  a  mourning  crape  should  be  attached  for 
several  days  to  the  flag  placed  in  the  Hall  of 
Session,  above  the  President's  chair.  Crape  was 
also  hung  from  the  windows  of  many  of  the 
houses  in  the  streets  through  which  the  procession 
passed.  The  students,  who  idolised  him,  un- 
harnessed the  horses  from  the  funeral  car  and  drew 
it  themselves  to  Pere  Lachaise.  Lafayette  pro- 
nounced the  funeral  oration  over  his  grave.  "  From 
nine  o'clock  to  eleven,"  writes  one  of  Miss  Berry's 
correspondents,  "there  were  eight  or  nine  pro- 
cessions at  a  time  crossing  the  Tuileries  Gardens, 
headed  by  tricoloured  flags,  with  his  name  and 
'  Libert^  et  Droit '  written  upon  them.  The  pro- 
cession reached  almost  the  whole  length  of  the 
boulevards ;  nothing  similar  was  ever  seen  at 
Paris  except  at  the  funeral  of  General  Foy." 

A  great  tribute  truly,  though  if  he  had  known 
that  it  was  to  be  paid,  his  cynicism  would  have 
stood  between  him  and  any  sublime  sense  of 
exaltation.  The  passion  of  his  life  was  not  to  be 
applauded,  but  to  be  loved;  and  it  would  have 
meant  more  to  him  to  know  that  his  wife,  whom 

361 


Madame  de  Stael  and  Her  Lovers 

he  had  so  often  treated  so  badly,  mourned  for  him 
in  all  sincerity. 

"  Dear  good  cousin,"  she  wrote  to  Rosalie,  "  I 
only  write  you  a  few  lines  to-day  to  say  that  I 
owe  to  your  letter  a  few  moments  of  respite  from 
my  grief.  It  is  so  full  of  friendship  for  my  poor 
Benjamin,  so  full  of  understanding  of  his  noble 
character  and  his  loving  and  tormented  heart,  so 
indulgent  for  the  need  which  he  felt  for  excite- 
ment and  agitation  —  precisely  because  it  was 
inseparable  from  the  need  of  liberty  and  the  hatred 
of  all  oppression." 

Things  being  as  they  were,  he  would  have 
asked,  one  imagines,  no  better  testimonial,  no 
kinder  epitaph.  We  may  read  it  as  the  proof 
that  in  one  at  least  of  his  aspirations  he  had 
succeeded.  "  Rendons  Charlotte  heureuse  "  is  one 
of  the  good  resolutions  of  the  Diary,  repeated  in 
one  of  the  letters  to  Madame  Recamier,  to  whom 
Benjamin  Constant  wrote  :  "  I  should  like  to  finish 
my  days  in  tranquillity,  giving  to  the  person  of 
whose  destiny  I  have  taken  charge,  and  who  is 
angelic  in  her  affection  and  goodness,  a  happiness 
which  I  will  try  to  pretend  to  share." 

It  was  a  happiness  which  he  assuredly  did  not 
succeed  in  sharing ;  for  he  asked  more  from  life, 
and  from  women,  than  Charlotte  —  than  any 
woman,  for  that  matter — had  it  in  her  power  to 
give  him.  But  Charlotte  refused  to  make  her 
own  limitations  a  ground  of  quarrel  with  him ; 
she  was  not  jealous  of  his  past,  and  did  not  try  to 

362 


"The  Good ^ Charlotte" 

disturb  him  in  the  sanctuary  of  his  inner  life,  but 
yielded  herself  to  deception,  and  had  her  reward 
in  happiness,  still  cherishing  her  idol  in  spite  of 
her  knowledge  that  it  had  feet  of  clay.  Nor  did 
her  love  or  her  adoration  cease  with  death.  Years 
afterwards,  when  Charles  de  Constant  called  upon 
her  in  Paris,  she  received  him,  standing  by  her 
husband's  bust. 


The  End 


363 


INDEX 


Acosta,  Chateau  d',  195. 
"Adolphe,"  125,  214,  312,  314, 

316,  317,  320,  321,  323,  353, 

354,  357,  360. 
Albany,  Comtesse  d',  174,  237, 

269,  338. 
Alembert,  d',  27. 
Alfieri,  335. 
"  de  rAUemagne,"  246,  248,  250, 

279,  281,  294. 
Arblay,  General  d',  67. 
Argenson,  Marquis  d',  328. 
Argenson,  Rene  d',  332. 
Auxerre,  194. 

Barante,  Prospere  de,  190,  261, 

342. 
Barclay  de  Tolly,  273. 
Barras,  102-105,  329. 
Bernadotte,  292. 
Berry,  Miss,  74,  285,  286,  297, 

313,  324,  325,  329,  344. 
Boissy-d'Anglas,  102. 
Bonaparte,    Joseph,    132,    133, 

138,  149. 
Bondeli,  Julie  von,  4,  17. 
Bonstetten,  20,  30,  127,  161,  197, 

199,  200-202,  244,  256,  351. 
Bowles,  288. 
Brevans,  231-233. 
Broglie,  Due  de,  313,  324,  325, 

328-330,    332,  334,    335-337, 

341,  342,  344-346,  351- 
Broglie,  Duchesse  de,  333,  337, 

352.     See   also  Stael,  Alber- 

tine  de. 
Brougham,  Henry,  288,  337. 
Brun,  Frederika,  194,  197,  244. 
Brunswick,  Prince  of,  138. 

2  A 


Brunswick,  Princess  of,  138. 
Bumey,  Dr.,  68. 
Bumey,  Fanny,  38,  67-70. 
Byron,  185, 285-287, 303, 338-340. 
Byron,  Lady,  339. 

CandoUe,  de,  337. 

Canning,  325. 

Carbonni^re,  Ramond  de,  35, 
280. 

Caroline,  Queen  of  Naples,  301. 

Cayla,  Mile,  11. 

Charles-Augustus,  Duke,  138. 

"Charlotte,"  212-214,  216-223, 
228-231,  234-237,  241,  256- 
258,  260,  264,  265,  275-278, 
290,  292,  311,  326,  347,  356, 
362.  See  also  Madame 
Dutertre. 

Charri^re,  M.  de,  89,  92. 

Charri^re,  Madame  de,  89-92, 
94,  96,  98,  141,  163,  188,  206, 
208,  213,  229. 

Chateaubriand,  114,  310,  343. 

Chateauvieux,  Frederic  de,  337. 

Chatre,  Marquise  de  la,  67,  'j'j. 

Coleridge,  287. 

Colombier,  89,  93-96. 

"  Considerations  sur  la  Revolu- 
tion fran^aise,"  340. 

Constant,  Benjamin,  32,  82-84, 
et  passim. 

Constant,  M.  Juste  de,  231. 

Constant,  Madame,  310,  312. 
See  also  "  Charlotte." 

Constant,  Rosalie  de,  44,  84,  94, 
100,  102,  112,  117,  119-121, 
140,141,151,153,197,201,202, 
213,  223,  225,  234,  236,  239, 


Index 


240, 242, 243, 251, 261, 298, 

3C»,  316,  317,  358,  362. 
Coppet,  31,  32,  34,  48,  49,  60, 61, 
62,  71,  72,  75,  81,  102,  109, 
no,  115,  117,  127,  130,  140, 
149,  172,  177,  182,  185,  209, 
219,  224,  239,  242,  244,  319, 

324,  332,  334,  343,  351- 
"Coriime,"  174, 185, 186, 189-193, 

215,  250,  267,  281,  353,  354. 
Correvon,  M.,  10,  ii. 
Courland,  Duchess  of,  138,  165, 

196,  202. 
Cram,  Baroness  von,  94. 
Grassier,  2,  5,  23. 
Croker,  288. 
Curchod,  Suzanne,  i,  3-8, 10-12, 

20,  22.      See   also    Madame 

Necker. 
Curchod,  Pastor,  6,  21. 
Curran,  287. 
Cuvier,  197,  200. 

Davy,  Sir  Himiphrey,  287. 

Decazes,  Due,  343. 

"Delphine,"  113,  123-126,  129, 
131,  188,  306. 

Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  287. 

Deyverdun,  M.,  8. 

Diderot,  27. 

Divonne,  M.  de,  198. 

"  Dix  Annies  d'Exil,"  247,  267, 
274. 

Dumont,  Etieime,  287,  337. 

Dutertre,  M.,  215,  217,  218. 

Dutertre,  Madame,  173,  212, 
215,21 6,232.  See  also  Madame 
de  Hardenberg  and  "Char- 
lotte." 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  285. 

Fauriel,  116,  215. 

Fersen,  Count,  4a 

Fichte,  138. 

Forbin,  M.  de,  303,  304,  357. 

Galiani,  Abbe,  27. 
Genlis,  Madame  de,  123. 


Gerando,  M.  de,   52,   128-130, 

139,  217,  298. 
Gibbon,  4-10, 12,23,26,27,29,30, 

61,63,64,  151,  156,241,  329. 
"  Glenarvon,"  339. 
Gloucester,  D^e  of,  287. 
Godwin,  287. 
Goethe,  1 34-1 37,  142. 
Gonfalonieri,  336. 
Grattan,  287. 

Grinam,  Baron,  27,  74,  81,  88. 
Guibert,  General,  38,  39,  40,  52, 

126. 

Hamilton,  Lady,  319. 

Hardenberg,  Madame  de,  112, 
154,  162.  See  also  Madame 
Dutertre  and  "  Charlotte." 

Hardenberg,  Princess  von,  231. 

Harrowby,  Lord,  288,  325. 

Haussonville,  Comte  d',  334. 

Hennin,  Princesse  d',  67. 

Herder,  137,  142. 

Her\'ey,  Mrs.,  338,  339. 

Holland,  Lady,  288,  313. 

Huber,  Mademoiselle,  28.  See 
also  Madame  RUliet-Huber. 

Humboldt,  325. 

Hume,  David,  27. 

Jaucourt,  M.,  67,  71,  76. 
Jersey,  Lady,  279,  287. 
Jordan,   Camille,  1 29-1 31,  133, 

172,  189,  194,  342. 
"  Journal  Intime,"  141,  223,  262, 

292,  331- 
Juniper  Hall,  66. 
Junot,  132. 
Jurine,  Dr.,  344. 

Kotzebue,  138,  139. 
Krudner,  Madame  de,  127,  130, 
245,  306-309,  314. 

Lafayette,  361. 
'  Laforest,  138. 
'  Laharpe,  337. 
I  Lally-Tollendal,  67,  343. 
i  Lamb,  Lady  Caroline,  339. 


366 


Index 


Langallerie,   M.    de,   198,  219, 

245,  338. 
Lansdovvne,  Lord,  287,  337. 
Le  Brun,  Madame  Vigee,  197. 
Lespinasse,Madamoiselle,  38,40. 
Lieven,  Madame  de,  313. 
Lindsay,     Madame,    154,    177, 

181,  182,  212,  316,  319. 
Liverpool,  Lord,  287,  294. 
Louise,  Duchess,  138. 
Louis  Philippe,  358. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  185, 287, 

325- 
Maistre,  Count  Joseph  de,  81. 
Malouet,  M.,  67. 
Malthus,  288. 

Marmontel,  M.  de,  22,  27,  64. 
Maulinie,  Pastor,  198. 
Meister,  Henri,  62,  74,  79,  80, 

102,   113,  115,  135,  245,  251, 

252,  295,  343,351- 
Mickleham,  38,  66,  297. 
Montesquiou,  M.  de,  TJ. 
Monti,  Vincenzo,  176,  187,  196, 

210,  336. 
Montmorency,  Mathieu  de,  53, 

67,  71,  76,  194,  198,  246,  247, 

266,  296,  345. 
Morellet,  Abb^,  27. 
Morris,  Gouvemeur,  54-56,  185. 
Moultou,  Pastor,  7,  10,  22. 
Murray,  John,  279,  289,  294. 

Napoleon,  132,  150,  173,  195, 
280,  267,  269,  272,  274,  292, 
296,  310,  330,  351. 

Narbonne,  M.  de,  52,  54,  56,  57, 
58,  63,  65-68,  70,  74-76,  78, 
loi,  126,  129,  131,  150,  189, 
254,  255,  285,  297,  329. 

Narishkin,  273. 

Nassau,  Madame  de,  105,  112, 
152,  153,  219,  227-231,  233, 
235,  236,  241. 

Necker,  Anne  -  Louise  -  Ger- 
maine,  26,  28,  30,  34,  36,  38, 
41,  42.  See  also  Stael, 
Madame  de. 


Necker,  Jacques,  11-16,  17,  20- 
22,  24,  25,  29-31,  33,  34,  40, 
43,  46-48,  54-57,  60-62,  65, 
72,  74,  80,  no,  146,  147,  281, 

291,  353- 
Necker,      Louis,      13,      17-19, 

48. 
Necker,   Madame,   r,  7,  9,   10, 

21-27,  29,  30,  34,  59-61,  63, 

64,    74,    79,    156.     See    also 

Suzanne  Curchod. 
Necker  de  Saussure,  Madame, 

28,    37,    124,    125,    i49>   166, 

170. 

Oberkirch,  Baroness  d',  21. 
Oelenschlager,  197,  246. 
Orange,  Prince  of,  138,  139. 
Orleans,  Duke  of,  345. 
Orloff,  273. 

Pavilliard,  Pastor,  4. 
Phillips,  Mrs.,  67,  70. 
Pictet,  196. 
Pitt,  William,  40,  72. 

Radziwill,  138,  139. 

Randall,  Mile,  201,  345,  346. 

Raynal,  Abbd,  22,  27,  30. 

R^camier,  M.,  211. 

Recamier,  Madame,  70,  127, 
132,  180-182,  196-198,  204, 
206,  215,  247,  266,  269,  300, 
301,  309,  310,  314,  315,  325- 
327,  333,  340,  348,  357,  362. 

Reichardt,  136. 

Rilliet-Huber,  201,  252,  295. 
343.  See  also  Huber,  Made- 
moiselle. 

Ritter,  Karl,  196. 

Robinson,  Crabb,  134,  141,  279, 
281,  287,  288,  353. 

Rocca,  Albert-Michel-Jean  de, 
255-260,  267-270,  272,  274- 
276,  290,  295,  296,  329,  337, 
340,  341,  343,  346,  347,  352. 

Rocca,  Alphonse  de,  351. 

Rogers,  288. 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  287. 


367 


Index 


Rousseau,  Jean -Jacques,  7,  i8, 

91,  312. 
Royer-CoUard,  342. 

Sabran,  Comte  de,  197,  199, 
2CX),  246,  266. 

Saint- Lambert,  M.,  27. 

Saint-Pierre,  Bemardin  de,  27. 

Saussure,  M.  de,  81. 

Schiller,  136,  137. 

Schlegel,  A.  W.,  138,  149,  154, 
156,  161,  165-166,  169,  174, 
185,  187,  188,  194-197,  199, 
200,  202,  208,  211,  218,  225, 
244-247,   268,   281,  293,  298, 

336,  337,  341,  346,  353- 

Sheridan,  287. 

Sismondi,  127,  148,  149,  161, 
164,  165,  174,  196,  199,  200, 
204,  237,  246,  269,  319,  333, 

335,351- 
Stael,  Albert  de,  60,  149,  195, 

239,  251,  269,  270,  285. 
Stael,  Albertine  de,   108,   137, 

141,   143,  176,  199,  202,  276, 

278,  294,  298,  305,  313,  327- 

329,  331-334- 

Stael,  Auguste  de,  195,  199,  200, 
238,  260,  268,  293,332,351. 

Stael-Holstein,  Baron  de,  38, 
40-42,  45,  49,  52,  53,  58. 

Stael,  Madame  de,  4,  9,  10,  13, 
30,  32, 38, 39,  44-46, 48,  50,  51, 
53-58,  60,  62,  66-72,  74,  75, 
78,  79,  81,  82,  et passim. 

Hi'- 


Stafford,  Lord,  288. 
Stein,  273,  282. 
Stormont,  Lord,  27. 
Suard,  M.,  27,  185, 
Sussex,  Duke  of,  287. 
Suvaroff,  273. 

Talleyrand,  M.  de,  52,  54,  56, 
67,  75,  76,  iZ,  104,  124,  126, 
293,  340. 

Tallien,  59,  102. 

Talma,  Madame,  143,  158,  161, 
162,  170,  180-184,  206,  319. 

Thelusson,  20,  31. 

Thomas,  27,  64. 

Tieck,  231. 

Tissot,  Dr.,  2,  30. 

Tronchin,  Dr.,  i8,  27,  28. 

"Valerie,"  306. 

Vermenoux,    Madame,     20-22, 

74- 
Vemes,  Madame,  18. 
Vemet,  20. 
Villers,  129,  137,  280. 
Voght,  Baron  de,  196,  198,  200, 

256. 
Voss,  135. 

Weimar,  137,  138-141. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  325. 
Werner,  196,  200,  246. 
Whitbread,  287. 
Wieland,  137,  142. 
Wilberforce,  288. 


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